Russia's economic problems will not be linear

At the beginning of the war, I analyzed the stability of the economy and society of Russia before the war of aggression in Ukraine.

It turned out that they have up to two years to win or they will be forced to leave.

Somewhere at the end of this year, I predicted the first serious economic problems, and at the beginning of the next, the first manifestations of public discontent with the further spread of anti-war sentiments and a drop in Putin's ratings.

And here is the good news.

In order to cover the budget deficit in October and November, 832 billion rubles were taken from Gazprom. Another 560 billion rubles were taken from the National Welfare Fund (NWF). Together, this is almost 1.4 trillion rubles.

And now let's figure out whether this is a lot or a little. Over the previous 9 months, less than a trillion rubles were spent on covering the budget deficit. That is, in just the last two months, Russia's budget deficit has become one and a half times larger than in 9 months since the beginning of the year.

This means that Russia's economic problems will not be linear, but exponential — ascending like an avalanche. Russia's strength is in its boundlessness, but it is also its weakness. Giant Russia is just a gigantic expense! As soon as problems with revenues begin, gigantic expenses simply will eat Russia from the inside.

And this was before the oil embargo and the price cap for Russian oil, which are introduced in December.

About the author: Serhii Marchenko, labor market expert, blogger.

The editors do not always share the opinions expressed by the authors of the blogs.