Highlights from Putin's annual news conference

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Following are some of the key quotes from Russian President Vladimir Putin's annual phone-in and news conference.

ON RUSSIA'S NEW ORESHNIK HYPERSONIC MISSILE

There is no chance of shooting down these missiles...

Let Western experts propose to us, and let them propose to those in the West and the U.S. who pay them for their analysis, to conduct some kind of technological experiment, say, a high-tech duel of the 21st century. Let them determine some target for destruction, say in Kyiv, concentrate all their air defence and missile defence forces there, and we will strike there with Oreshnik and see what happens. We are ready for such an experiment, but is the other side ready?

ON THE WAR IN UKRAINE

I must say that the situation (at the front) is changing dramatically... There is movement along the entire front line. Every day...

And we are moving, as you said, towards solving our primary tasks, which we outlined at the beginning of the special military operation...

Everyone is fighting, literally heroically. And they are fighting right now. Let us wish them all, both those who are fighting in the Kursk region (of Russia) and those who are fighting along the entire front line, good luck, victory and to return home.

ON THE ECONOMY

In Russia, the situation is normal, stable, we are developing despite everything, despite external threats and attempts to influence us...

Of course, inflation is ... an alarming signal...

There are some issues here, namely inflation, a certain overheating of the economy, and the government and the central bank are already tasked with bringing the tempo down...

There are subjective (reasons for rising prices), and there are shortcomings on our part. For example, some experts believe that the central bank could have started using certain tools that are not related to raising the key rate more effectively and earlier. Yes, the central bank started doing all this somewhere in the summer, but, I repeat, these experts believe that this could and should have been done earlier...

This is an unpleasant and bad thing, in fact, the rise in prices. But I hope that in general, while maintaining macroeconomic indicators, we will cope with this too.

(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov, Darya Korsunskaya, Olesya Astakhova, Oksana Kobzeva, Anastasia Lyrchikova; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)