Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center Resident Senior Fellow Anders Aslund writes for Project Syndicate on the declining Russian economy:
At his press conference last December, Putin laid out his expectations: “In a worst-case scenario, I believe [the crisis] would take a couple of years….After that, growth is inevitable, due to a changing foreign economic situation among other things. A growing world economy will require additional energy resources.” This December, Putin stated: “The current situation is complicated but…not critical.”
That is no longer believable. Russia’s economy was stagnating even before the bottom fell out of global oil prices, and most experts expect energy prices to remain low for years. This confronts Putin with a challenge he has never faced: leading Russia at a time when there is no light visible at the end of the tunnel.