Russian officials continue to insist the country’s economy is strong and resilient, even as a senior economist was dismissed after publicly contradicting that message.
Andrei Klepach, former chief economist at Russia’s state-controlled development bank VEB and a former deputy economy minister, was reportedly fired on Sunday following comments he made earlier in the year.
His dismissal came after reports in Russian-language media circulated a speech in which he warned that Russia could not win a prolonged war of attrition with Ukraine.
Klepach had presented his findings to fellow economists on May 21, delivering a stark assessment of Russia’s economic and social trajectory as the war drags into its fifth year.
“In this war of attrition, we will not win the competition. We’re under the illusion that everything will collapse. It hasn’t, and it won’t. Our costs are mounting,” Klepach said, according to a translation.
“I believe Russia won’t collapse, but I’m almost certain that we’ll end up in a social crisis. We won’t collapse economically, but our lag will widen, with all the ensuing consequences,” he added.
The dismissal was directly linked to his economic assessment, according to exiled independent Russian outlet The Bell, which cited unnamed sources familiar with the matter, though CNBC could not independently verify the report.
The move is seen as a further signal of the Kremlin’s zero-tolerance approach to public criticism of its military campaign, nearly four and a half years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.
Russian government officials pushed back firmly against any suggestion of economic weakness, with the Russian Embassy to the U.K. telling CNBC that Russia’s fiscal position remains “significantly stronger” than that of many Western economies.
The embassy pointed to foreign public debt of around $57 billion, describing this as “considerably less” than the amounts the U.S., U.K., Italy, or France spend on debt servicing alone.
“The Russian economy remains resilient, as does the will of our people,” a spokesperson for the Russian Embassy to the U.K. told CNBC by email.
“Attempts to undermine Russia through economic pressure have not produced the results their authors expected,” the spokesperson added, arguing that Western sanctions had in fact damaged British businesses and disrupted supply chains.
Despite the official defiance, independent analysts have drawn attention to structural problems within Russia’s wartime economy, including heavy reliance on military spending, higher taxes, and subsidized bank lending.
Ukraine’s long-range drone attacks on Russian oil refineries and delivery warehouses have added further pressure, bringing the country’s economic vulnerabilities into sharper public focus in recent weeks.
Anders Aslund, a Swedish economist and former senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said Klepach’s dismissal came as no surprise given the boldness of his conclusions.
“In an eminent analysis, he concluded that Russia could not win a war of attrition against Ukraine and that Russia was likely to end up in a social crisis as in 1917,” Aslund said via X on Sunday.
Nigel Gould-Davies, a senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, described Klepach as very capable and smart, and said the episode confirmed a broader pattern among Russia’s most knowledgeable economists.
“I have long said the best economic minds in Russia are the most alarmed. This again confirms it,” Gould-Davies said Monday via social media.