Carnegie Moscow Center
The economic crisis has devastated the Russian economy, where GDP is expected to contract by nearly 10 percent in 2009. Despite optimism among government experts, ballooning debt and plummeting revenues threaten the recovery effort.
The economic crisis may have exacerbated many of the vulnerabilities in Russia's economy, but it stopped the deterioration of U.S.-Russian relations, which were the lowest they had been in twenty-five years.
Pushing the "reset button" on U.S.-Russia relations will be impossible if a dramatic curtailment of Russian state resources produces harder political crackdowns, economic nationalism, and isolationism.
Russia remains hobbled by an unfulfilled need to diversify its economy and to strengthen the independence of its economic and judicial systems. A global turnaround will not solve these problems.
The economic crisis has had a clear impact on the already impoverished countries of Central Asia, but few Americans and Europeans have noticed. China and Russia have stepped in to provide aid, and their investments threaten institutional reform in the region.
The federal highway occupation by workers in the small town of Pikalyovo illustrates both the fact that the Russian people have no way to communicate with their government and that the government's only method of resolving problems is through Putin's direct intervention.
Newly-released survey results show that Russians are holding regional leaders, rather than the federal government, responsible for the economic crisis in their regions. But federal authorities won't be able to get away with this forever.
As top policy experts assess President Obama’s performance during his first hundred days in office, the results are somewhat mixed but generally positive.
Russia’s response to the global economic crisis has focused on supporting corporations and the financial sector. The deepening social impact of the downturn suggests that leaders should concentrate on cushioning the blow to the poor and the vulnerable.
If Russia’s regions are to weather the financial crisis, both local and federal governments need to support and protect small businesses.