Podcast host Alex Gabuev is joined by Alexandra Prokopenko, a fellow at Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, and by Alexander Kolyandr, a financial analyst and non-resident senior scholar at the Center for European Policy Analysis, to discuss the state budget for 2025/26 and the prospects of the Russian economy in coming years.

With a quarter of the global tanker fleet transporting Russian cargo in 2024, the so-called “shadow fleet” is neither as separate nor as obscure as might have been thought.

Washington and Brussels appear to believe making it more expensive to get around Western restrictions will fuel inflation in Russia and boost economic inefficiency.

As Russian president Vladimir Putin marks 25 years in power, spending to back his war in Ukraine is propping up the economy.

In Putin’s Russia, property rights have become casualties of war, with a precarious reliance on personal approval supplanting legal frameworks, foreshadowing potential chaos in a post-Putin era.

The authors of the article studied the exodus of Russians following the invasion of Ukraine. They also examined the challenges faced by the Central Bank as it struggles to control inflation.