St. Petersburg forum in the smoke of war, the fuel crisis in the regions and the debts of Russian bigtech

The St. Petersburg Economic Forum 2026 opened under columns of smoke from a Ukrainian drone strike and was held under the slogan “Pragmatic dialogue is the path to a stable future.” But Vladimir Putin had nothing to say about the path to the future this year. He again boasted of low unemployment and rising wages, which in fact indicate deep problems in the economy, and declared the slowdown in growth, which went into negative territory in the first quarter, as his own conscious decision.