Is Russia doomed?

It’s widely acknowledged by now that the Russian economy is set for a deep recession this year and we think a fall in output of around 5% is likely. This would be similar in scale to the contraction during Russia’s 1998 crisis, but the key point is that the recovery from the current recession is likely to be much weaker. Indeed, we think growth over the rest of this decade is likely to be close to that seen during the Brezhnev stagnation.