Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a live nationwide broadcast call-in in Moscow, Russia June 7, 2018. Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin via REUTERS

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he had warned Europe a few years ago about the risk of the United States imposing its rules on other countries, but that nobody had wanted to listen.

Putin made the comments during his live televised annual phone-in with the Russian people.

The Russian leader said steel tariffs imposed by Washington on other nations amounted to sanctions, and that European countries had never expected they would be affected by such measures.