Russian revival unravelled?

Russia has started to emerge gingerly from recession but don’t bank on it lasting

Russia’s economy has withstood a combination of low energy prices and sanctions and may soon emerge from the deepest contraction of President Vladimir Putin’s 16-year reign. Without a sudden oil-price surge, though, few signs point to much of a sustainable rebound. While the IMF predicts Russia’s GDP will return to growth in 2017, expanding by 1%, Putin himself has warned that the economy will stagnate near zero if no new sources of economic activity are found. Russia earns about half of its revenue from crude and natural gas and benefitted from the recovery in oil markets in the first half of the year. And while Brent soldiered toward $50 in mid-August, lows at the beginning of the third qu