The speaker of the Russian lower house has said the West’s sanctions policy has been a response to Moscow’s increased competitiveness, and had crashed Western plans to put a “tame and obedient” president in the Kremlin. “It is completely obvious that Russia is a very inconvenient competitor for them in many spheres, and they try to remove it from the field, often using unfair moves,” Vyacheslav Volodin said on Wednesday, according to TASS.