Putin Orders His Officials Not to Allow Recession

Friday, June 20, 2025

Russian President Vladimir Putin cautioned his officials to make sure their efforts to cool down an economy driven to overheating by military spending don't overshoot and drive it into recession.

Posted by Corky at 09:32 PM | 1 COMMENT | permalink

"Some specialists and experts are pointing to the risks of stagnation or even recession. This, of course, is not to be allowed under any circumstances," Putin told the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, an annual conference to showcase the Russian economy that he had once used to attract investment from the West.

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"Putin pointed to statistics showing that gross domestic product is still growing " by 1.5 percent in the first four months of the year.

However, analysts have pointed out that that is due entirely to ever-higher volumes of output from the defense sector to fight the war in Ukraine. Civil sectors of the economy have slowed sharply, as the government has ended various subsidy programs over the past year, notably for residential mortgages.

The government is being squeezed harder than at any time since the invasion by the fact that global prices for crude oil, exports of which generate a third of its revenue, have slumped to their lowest in over three years as Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies opened a battle to win back global market share from higher-cost producers in the United States and elsewhere."