Chief Economist

Officials spoke that Russia was threatening a new stagnation due to the war. Putin in response: there is a "soft calm landing"

Putin at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok acted as the chief economist of Russia, saying that there is no stagnation in the country. He is right, because the key industries are no longer stagnant, but fall - and his subordinates complain with might and main, that the economy can no longer pull the war. Now officials will have to stop the Russians by recession. Novyevropa says that it is really important that can be taken out of what happened on the forum.

At the plenary meeting of the Eastern Forum, Putin said that he does not observe any termination of economic growth in Russia. He has the arguments: everything that happens is a “soft calm planting” of the economy, that is, the transition from growth rate above 4% per year to more modest. But, he claims, lending does not stop, the Central Bank successfully fights inflation - then everything is fine and nothing stagnates.

Putin retorted the complaints of German Gref-the head of Sberbank and his acquaintance still at work in the City Hall of St. Petersburg, who the day earlier, he fenced all the newly-sounded term “Technical Stagnation”. Under him, he just had in mind that the growth rate of GDP approached zero. It is time to get out of the “controlled cooling” of the economy (another example of an economy -owl - the authorship of the Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov), otherwise it would not be late, prophesies Gref.

The head of Sberbank is far from the first of the government officials to have been talking about economic problems in recent months. In June, at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, Minister of Economics Maxim Reshetnikov warned : "In general, it seems, on the verge of transition to a recession." And the head of the Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina supported him at the same time: the current growth resources are exhausted and it is time to think about the “some new growth model”.

The past summer months showed to what extent the resources are really exhausted.

The oil and gas revenues of the budget collapsed by 20%, according to the results of the year, the pit will become deeper - the treasury will not be counted by the fourth part of the petrodollars. Oil production in January-Mayfell by 3.5%, gas -by almost the same (by 3.3%).

The crisis captures new industries: housing sales in new buildings in January-July collapsed by 22%, which is why no one was needed by Russian steel, the export of which was sharply reduced by sanctions. The consumption of metal in the first half of 2025 fell by 14-15% in annual terms, so the head of one of the largest steel companies, Severstal, Alexander Shevelev says that such a crisis was not 30 years old. Due to the same sanctions, there is no one to sell coal, the authorities stopped subsidizing the prey, as a result of about fifty cuts and mines of one hundred and eighty are closed or on the verge of closing.

Therefore, the word "stagnation" as a description of this whole picture sounds too soft. Neither Gref, nor reshetnikov, nor Nabiullin, of course, are ready to utter the taboo word “war”, because of which all these troubles happened. But loyalist economists in their reports calmly reason that it is in the war that the whole economy is holding, and its “peaceful” industries fall with acceleration.

The Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short -term forecasting (TsMAKP, one of its leaders - Dmitry Belousov, the brother of the Minister of Defense Andrei Belousov) said that in July, the non -military industries fell by 2.3% (and in June it was only minus 0.8%).

This means that the whole modest and almost imperceptibleincrease in the economy by 1.1% in seven months of the year is completely stimulated by the colossal expenditures of the budget for the war.

They will end - there will be no growth, but there will be a drop in GDP at the same percent that civil industries are already falling on.

Therefore, Putin’s demand to close the discussion among subordinates about what is now in Russia - “Technical Stagnation” or “Returse of the Recession” - it is quite understandable. According to the Logic of the Kremlin, there is nothing to argue about now: you need to take ten more square kilometers near Pokrovsky or Kupyansk.

Putin's subordinates accepted the signal correctly. The head of the State Bank of VTB Andrei Kostin immediately after his chef’s performance quickly reacted : they say, there is no “threats of some crisis” and will not be, because our economy is living. But back in June, as it was then fashionable, he complained of “icing, freezing” and in general about a difficult situation. But after the signals from the Kremlin, everything immediately became clear: “What is the difference-a recession or not a recession, while enterprises somehow withstand it,” Kostin was happy on Friday in Vladivostok.