President says he will step down by 2024, and accuses the west of trying to punish Russia for being strong and assertive

Vladimir Putin does not want to rule Russia for life, but may well run for another six-year term in 2018, he has said.

In an interview with a Russian state news agency, Putin, who has ruled as either president or prime minister since 2000, said he would base any decision to run again on the mood of the country and his personal feelings.

Staying in office beyond 2024 would be detrimental for the country, he told Tass. It was too early to erect monuments to himself, he said, but local officials who wanted to name streets after him “did so out of good intentions”.

The interview touched on familiar topics including the deterioration of Russia’s relations with the west. Putin said the west wanted to punish Russia for being strong and assertive, and not over the unrest in Ukraine.

“Take a look at our millennium-long history. As soon as we rise, other nations immediately feel the urge to push Russia aside, to put it ‘where it belongs’, to slow it down,” he said.

On Monday, the finance minister, Anton Siluanov, said that sanctions could cost the Russian economy at least $40bn (£26bn) a year, while the recent sharp drop in oil prices could lose the country as much as $100bn more.

Putin said the western countries that imposed sanctions on Russian individuals over the Kremlin’s actions in Ukraine this year “proceeded from a false assumption that I have some personal business interests because of ties with the people on the list”.

“By pinching them, they were trying to hit me,” he said, adding that the people on the list made their fortunes legally over a period of many years.

Many of those on the sanctions list are Putin’s former judo partners or KGB associates and have become wealthy since he became president.

As to events in Ukraine, which have pushed Russia and the west into their worst crisis since the cold war, Putin said he had no regrets because he was certain that Moscow had acted justly. “The strength is in the truth. When a Russian feels he is right, he is invincible. I am saying this with absolute sincerity, not for the sake of just saying.

“If we knew we had done something bad and were unfair, then everything would be hanging by a thread. When you lack the inner certainty that what you do is right, this always causes some inner hesitations, and these are dangerous. In this case I have none,” he said.