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Russia and the Global Financial Crisis:
The End of “Putnism”?
Kathryn Stoner-Weiss
Associate Director
CDDRL, Stanford University
Just over a year ago, Dmitri Medvedev was elected as the third President of the Russian Federation. His presidential predecessor and long time mentor, Vladimir Putin,
assumed the office of prime minister shortly thereafter. In an interview with Itogi, just
prior to the 2 March 2008 elections, Medvedev gave a strong indication of what his
plans were for Russia: “We want stability and continuation with the course that has
been chosen. We do not want disturbances of any kind.”1
The theme of Medvedev’s presidential tenure, then, was to have been continuity
of “Putin’s plan” for Russia, which was first drawn out in Putin’s “Millennium Statement” in January 2000 when he became acting President.2 This meant continuing the
high annual growth rates that Russia enjoyed from 1999 through 2008 of 7 percent
on average, increased state ownership (or at least management) of Russia’s vast mineral
resources, the resurrection of Russia as a foreign policy superpower, and the establishment of Russia as an emerging financial powerhouse on par with Brazil, India, and
China (keeping the “R” in BRIC). Medvedev had also put on his agenda improving
Russia’s social infrastructure in the areas of housing, healthcare, transportation, and
education, a multi-faceted program termed National Projects.
It is not at all surprising, of course, that Medvedev would want to follow in
Putin’s economic and political footsteps. Between 1999 and the summer of 2008, the
Russian economy enjoyed growing budget surpluses, the eradication of foreign debt,
the accumulation of massive hard-currency reserves, and modest inflation. The stock
market boomed, and foreign direct investment––although still low compared to other
emerging markets––grew rapidly. In this period, real disposable income increased by
Kathryn Stoner-Weiss is Associate Director for Research and Senior Research Scholar at
the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. She is the author of Waves and Troughs of
Post-Communist Reform (working title, forthcoming, Cambridge: 2009), among other books.
Copyright © 2009 by the Brown Journal of World Affairs
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Kathryn Stoner-Weiss
more than 10 percent a year, consumer spending skyrocketed, unemployment fell from
12 percent in 1999 to 6 percent in 2006, and poverty declined from 41 percent of the
population living at the subsistence minimum in 1999 to 14 percent in 2006. When
Dmitri Medvedev took over as President from Vladimir Putin in the spring of 2008,
Russians were richer than ever before.
But what a difference a year makes. The global financial crisis, beginning in September 2008, has hit Russia hard, and it makes following Putin’s plan nearly impossible
for Medvedev. Between June 2008 and January 2009, the Russian stock market suffered a 70 percent drop in value. Despite an aggressive Central Bank policy aimed at
propping it up, the value of the ruble fell by a third relative to the U.S. dollar. Rising
corporate debt, troubled banks, and a credit crunch also have whittled down Russia’s
foreign reserves. Inflation rose in February 2009 to a 14-month high of 13.9 percent,
and some analysts predict that it will go as high as 15 percent by the end of the year.3
At the same time, between October 2008 and February 2009, Russian industrial output
decreased by 16 percent according to Bank of America Securities–Merrill Lynch. Finally,
Russian government revenue in the first quarter of 2009 was estimated to be down 28
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percent due to decreases in commodity prices––particularly the price of Urals crude
oil, Russia’s primary mineral export.4 GDP growth in 2009 is expected to be between
-0.2 percent and 0.0 percent. The revised federal budget indicates that Russia will run
an eight percent budget deficit for first time since the economic crisis of 1998.
Figure 1
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Russia and the Global Financial Crisis: The End of “Putinism”?
Figure 2
Given the dramatic change in Russia’s economic circumstances a year after
Medvedev’s ascendancy to president and Putin’s move to the office of prime minister,
now is a particularly appropriate time to evaluate the political causes and effects of
Russia’s latest economic troubles. This article surveys Putin’s economic legacy in Russia
and argues that despite eight years of rapid growth, by the first quarter of 2009, Russia
became caught in the same cycle of problems that it suffered in the 1990’s when growth
was negative, unemployment and inflation were high, and oil export prices were low.
The same weak manufacturing sector that characterized Russia in 1998 reemerged from
behind the shadow of high world oil prices ten years later.
Despite Putin’s tendency to claim authorship of a new developmental model,
backed by purported political and social stability aided by soft authoritarianism, it is
now clear that neither his autocratic politics nor his state-led economic policies had
much to do with Russian growth. They will, however, have wide ramifications for
Russia’s ability to pull out of its latest economic tailspin. Russia recovered quickly from
its transitional recession in 1999, primarily due to prudent fiscal policies established
before Putin became president, followed by a rapid increase in commodity––particularly oil––prices. Recovery this time around, though, may be more difficult than it was
a decade ago. In particular, a reinvigorated economy will depend on rising domestic
consumer demand for Russian products (unlikely given high unemployment and
inflation rates), another record rise in world oil prices (problematic at a time when
the rest of the world is also in recession), and prudent fiscal policy––not an attractive
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option politically since it will require cutting, not expanding, government expenses at
a time when unemployment is high, the ruble is dropping, and average Russians are
feeling the economic pinch. Has the global financial crisis brought with it the end of
Putin’s plan for an economically developed, autocratic, and internationally re-assertive
Russia? Moreover, given Russia’s new financial circumstances, what can we expect of
its leadership now and in the immediate future?
“Putinism”: Growth, Stability, Autocracy
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The main claims of “Putinism” as an alternative model of growth and development are
that high growth rates and financial and political stability were achieved at the expense
of modest retreats from democracy. Putinists point to the quick recovery of the Russian
economy following the economic crisis of August 1998, when the government defaulted
on its foreign debt obligations and devalued the ruble.
In the “transitional recession” that occurred between 1989––just prior to the 1991
collapse of the Soviet Union––and 1995, real GDP fell by about 40 percent. There
were modest increases in growth rates in 1995 and 1996, with a rather precipitous
drop occurring in 1998. But by 1999, the economy was already beginning to grow
again––a year before Mr. Putin assumed the presidency of the Russian Federation.
The growth trajectory jumped to an all time high in 2000 with a GDP increase of
about 8.5 percent, but then declined between 2001 and 2002 to between only 5 and
7 percent. It increased again in 2003 and 2004 to just over 7 percent and maintained
this level through 2006 before jumping again to about 9 percent through 2007.5 This
remarkable growth occurred at the same time that Urals Oil Blend––Russia’s chief oil
export––increased in value from about $12 a barrel in 1998 to $70 a barrel in 2007.
The increase in oil prices generated a marked rise in government income and an increase
in real personal incomes. As a result, the economy enjoyed an increased demand for
manufactured goods and commercial services. In this way, as Philip Hanson notes in
a recent analysis of the Russian economy, “It is by their indirect effects…that oil and
gas price rises fuelled Russian growth.”6
Beyond this, however, just as the slump in the Russian economy originated in
the Soviet period and extended through the 1990s under Boris Yeltsin’s presidency, the
recovery following the 1998 collapse had its true origins in the policies initiated under
Yeltsin’s reformist government of the early 1990s. In particular, recovery was due to
the fiscal decisions made in the immediate aftermath of the 1998 collapse by Yeltsin’s
short lived prime minister, Yevgeny Primakov, and the sudden rise in oil prices shortly
thereafter.
the brown journal of world affairs
Russia and the Global Financial Crisis: The End of “Putinism”?
The 1990s and the transitional U-Curve
The 1990s were a time of incredible economic hardship in Russia. After the collapse of
the Soviet Union in December 1991, Russian GDP contracted for seven consecutive
years, investment remained flat, unemployment ballooned, disposable incomes dropped,
and poverty levels jumped until as much as 40 percent of the population was living
at or below the subsistence minimum after the August 1998 financial meltdown. This
general pattern was evident following the collapse of communism in every country
throughout the region, regardless of how democratic or autocratic their regimes.
Although he is often blamed for all the ills of the Russian economy in the 1990s,
Putin is also credited with its recovery. It is undeniable that Russia’s first president,
Boris Yeltsin, inherited an economy that was already in the worst non-wartime economic depression ever. Indeed, during the transitional period through the mid 1990s,
the entire region experienced an economic recession and then began to recover several
years after the adoption of reforms in many, if not most, of the 27 post-communist
states of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Russia’s economy followed this
same general trajectory through the 1990s and likely would have done so regardless
of who was in power (see Figure 3). Russia’s economic depression in the 1990s was
deeper than the region’s average, but that was largely because the socialist economic
legacy was worse there than elsewhere. Throughout this period, the average price of
oil was about $17 a barrel.
Figure 3: Russia’s transitional U-Curve compared to average of all transition (post-communist) countries
1989-2006 (Source: Economist Intelligence Unit, Country Profile: Russia 2006, Accessible at: http://store.
eiu.com/article/1180319703.html).
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Kathryn Stoner-Weiss
Figure 4
108
The 1998 Crash and Recovery7
As Figures 3 and 4 indicate, Russian GDP began to recover from its steep decline as
early as 1997. In part, this was due to the natural transitional U-shaped pattern occurring across the post-communist world, but it was also undoubtedly due to some of the
benefits of the reform policies undertaken between 1992 and 1994. These policies, and
their often half-hearted implementation, however, are also partly responsible for the
sharp dip in GDP that occurred again in 1998, as well as the Russian Financial Crisis
in August of that year. The causes of this crisis were many, including an uncertain set
of economic policies that included rapid privatization, but also massive budget deficits
used to finance inefficient, non-competitive industries, and an attempt to cover these
deficits through the issuance of short-term, high-interest bonds, and massive foreign
borrowing. As long as oil prices stayed relatively high, this precarious balance was
maintained, but as Figure 5 (below) indicates, when oil prices dipped in 1997 and
1998, Russia’s revenues dipped and the GDP dropped precipitously. As a result, the
Russian government defaulted on its international debt obligations and then allowed
the ruble to effectively crash.
Yeltsin replaced his reformist Prime Minister at the time, Sergei Kirienko, with
former communist Yevgeny Primakov. In the face of the crisis, Primakov and his government had to pursue fiscally responsible policies, especially since no bank or foreign
country would lend to the Russian government. As a result, the government slashed
spending and reduced the state’s role in the economy. In combination with devaluation, which reduced imports and spurred Russian exports, Russia’s new fiscal austerity
the brown journal of world affairs
Russia and the Global Financial Crisis: The End of “Putinism”?
created the permissive conditions for real economic growth starting in 1999. In this
way, Russia’s economic turnaround began before Putin came to power. Fortuitously,
and through no policy direction of Mr. Putin’s, of course, one year after he entered the
Kremlin as President in 2000, Urals Oil Blend began to rise in price, and its rise did
not stop until the fall of 2008.
The recovery of 1998 occurred for three reasons. First, consumer demand temporarily increased for domestically produced products because with the practically
worthless ruble, imports were just too expensive. Second, the rise in world oil prices
caused a gradual increase in consumer income and exports became more affordable.
Third, Pimakov initiated a disciplined fiscal policy.
The Pace and Causes of Growth 2000-2007
In cooperation with parliament, Putin’s first government (2000-2004) dusted off and
put into place several liberal reforms drafted years earlier under Yeltsin, including a
flat income tax of 13 percent, a new land code (making it possible to own commercial
and residential land), a new legal code, a new regime to prevent money laundering, a
new regime for currency liberalization, and a reduced tax on profits, from 35 percent
to 24 percent.
Toward the end of his first term as Russia’s president, however, Putin’s economic
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policies became rather uneven. Russia began to display classic signs of the “resource
curse”––an excessive dependence on the revenues from oil exports. This brought with
it Dutch Disease––a high exchange rate making manufactured goods too expensive
and allowing imported goods to re- Russia began to display classic signs of the
place domestically produced goods.
“resource curse”––an excessive depenOther pathologies of the resource
curse include increasing debt, state dence on the revenues from oil exports.
ownership of mineral extractive industries, high levels of government corruption, and
eventually, negative growth.8 Some analysts, like Evgeny Gontmakher, therefore, survey
Russia’s current economic circumstances and conclude, “This is all a result of incorrect
economic policy, oil dependence and rampant corruption. Until the system changes,
these problems will persist.”9
This is despite the fact that a Stabilization Fund was established in 2003 to bank
resource extraction tax revenues in order to fight future inflation, or defend the ruble
should that (ever) prove necessary in the event of falling oil prices. But the stabilization fund was not used to diversify Russia’s increasingly decrepit manufacturing base,
which was still largely unreformed since the Soviet collapse. Thus, as oil and other
extractive commodity prices dropped, Russia’s economy had few other industries of
value to which to turn in 2008.
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Kathryn Stoner-Weiss
At the same time, between 2003 and 2007, government control and ownership of
the Russian economy increased and investment decisions by Russian firms were often
a result of political pressure rather than market forces. The most notorious example of
this is the gradual expansion of Gazprom, an arm of the Russian state, as it purchased
Sibneft, and also in the takeover of companies such as Yukos by Rosneft. State ownership
of the oil industry in particular grew dramatically. Estimates are that in 2004, about
19 percent of Russia’s oil came from state-controlled enterprises, but by 2008, it was
over 50 percent. Most of the gas industry had never been privatized.10
Coincident with the increase in state control of the oil industry, however, the
rate of growth of Russian oil production dropped significantly between 2004 and
2007­­––from 10 percent in crude oil production to 5 percent in 2005, 3 percent in
2006 and 2 percent in 2007.11 This led to a corresponding decline in export volume.
Further, the Russian state has not invested in improving Russian oil extractive capacity and infrastructure––a problem that now has an exaggerated effect on the Russian
economy as it looks toward trying to recover from the financial crisis. With the crash
of the price of oil has come the latest crash of the Russian economy and a situation
110
disturbingly similar to the period following the crash of 1998.
R us s ian G DP G rowth and World C rude Oil Pric es ,
1985-2006
15%
95
85
10%
75
5%
%
G DP
65
2006 US$ per barrel
55
0%
45
-5%
35
-10%
C rude O il P ric es
25
15
-15%
5
-20%
1985
GDP
Brent Oil Price
-5
1990
1995
2000
2005
Figure 5: Russian GDP and OIL (Source: World Bank; data available at http://www-wds.worldbank.
org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2008/12/05/000333038_20081205005550/Rendered/PDF/467240ENGLISH0100Nov020080rer171eng.pdf ).
the brown journal of world affairs
Russia and the Global Financial Crisis: The End of “Putinism”?
The Global Financial Crisis And The End of Putinism?
The collapse of the Russian economy in the 1990s had little to do with the relatively
democratic regime under Boris Yeltsin. That is, democracy did not lead to bad economic
outcomes in Russia. Similarly, the recovery of the economy under Mr. Putin has had
little to do with his turn toward a more autocratic method of ruling Russia.12 This argument can now be taken even further: the current economic crisis demonstrates in stark
terms that what ails the Russian economy is the same set of problems that prevailed in
the 1990s. Autocracy did not lead to an economic miracle, and it has not forestalled
economic crisis. A decade after the collapse of the economy under Boris Yeltsin, and
in the wake of a return to low world oil prices, Russia’s economy looks much as it did
in 1998––with a weak manufacturing sector, high unemployment, mounting debt,
growing inflation, a troubled currency, and an increasingly corrupt and bloated state.
It turns out that Putinism had no magic developmental formula after all. The problem, however, is that international and domestic circumstances are rather different in
2009 than they were ten years ago, and prospects for as quick a recovery are therefore
rather dim.
To be sure, in 2009, Russia faces some of the same difficulties as other countries
(including the United States and Europe) in the face of the global economic downturn:
a credit crunch, rising deficit, a failing banking sector, growing unemployment, plummeting GDP, and a devaluing currency. In other respects, however, Russia’s problems are
more circumstantial and might have been avoided with different economic and political
policies during the good times. Foreign investors, for example, have pulled out $290
billion since August 2008. This is perhaps partially a response to the Russian incursion
into Georgia at that time, but it is also due to an increasingly unsteady property rights
regime and challenging business environment. In the 2008 World Bank Ease of Doing
Business Index, Russia ranked a dismal 106th out of 178 countries.13
Russia amassed an estimated $538 billion in foreign reserves by August 2008.
Unfortunately, it has also spent $212 billion of this money between October 2008 and
January 2009 in a desperate attempt to prop up the ruble. It set a broadband exchange
rate that, at the time of writing, has more or less stabilized. Nonetheless, in burning
through such a significant portion of the foreign reserves in this way, the Russian
government is now constrained in making other key decisions in other sectors of the
economy because it is running out of money.
The revised Russian federal budget issued in March 2009 assumes an average oil
price per barrel of $41, whereas in June 2008 the Duma passed a budget assuming what
was thought to be a relatively conservative price of $95 a barrel. This is a direct result
of the fact that the price of Urals Oil Blend dropped 69 percent between August 2008
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and March 2009. In response, the Russian government under Prime Minister Putin
has increased government spending by 667 billion rubles over the June 2008 budget
to 9.7 trillion rubles. An estimated 1.6 trillion rubles is to go to anti-crisis spending,
with an additional 300 billion rubles to shore up Russia’s troubled banking and 601.5
billion rubles to be distributed to regional budgets. These moves increased government
spending to a quarter of GDP in 2009 at a time when federal budget revenues were
estimated to drop 40 percent below target for the year. Moreover, lower oil prices will
cost the budget 2.7 trillion rubles and reduce revenues by 3.84 trillion rubles.14
The creation of the Reserve Fund from oil tax revenues was an undoubtedly resounding success between 2003 and 2008. It was meant to anticipate economic tough
times brought about by a sudden drop in the price of oil. Nonetheless, although the
recovery plan issued on 19 March 2008 by Prime Minister Putin is aggressive and in
some ways encouraging, the projected deficit for 2009 of about 10 percent would use
up most of the Reserve Fund of 7.32 trillion rubles.15 The government has enough
reserves currently to prop up the economy through 2010 at the latest, but beyond
that, if oil prices do not spike up again (as happened in 2000-2001), fiscal policy is
not tightened, and Russian industry does not restructure and produce goods of value
on global markets, Russia’s recovery from the global economic crisis will be protracted
and painful and its seeming economic miracle will come to a definitive end.
Should this be the case, what are the political effects we might anticipate? On the
domestic front, there have already been a few sporadic public protests of government
measures (like an increase in tariffs on imported cars), but these have been relatively small
and shortlived. A March 2009 survey by polling agency VTsIOM found that “one in
five Russians was prepared to protest the government, but 60 percent said they thought
mass protests were unlikely.”16 Increased unemployment, declining wages, and growing
inflation may seem like reasons to protest, but evidently social unrest is unlikely as long
as long as pensioners get money and wage arrears are under control––two problematic
areas in the 1990s for the Russian state. But the Levada Center indicates that only 40
percent of Russians thought that the country was on the right track, down 20 percent
from September 2008, and 40 percent of those polled thought that protests against
the state’s economic policies were likely in their town or city, although they themselves
were unlikely to join such protests. 17 Even in the worst days of economic crisis in 1998,
after all, few Russians took to the streets, and current polls seem to indicate the same
political culture continues to prevail. At the end of February 2009, Medvedev had a
71 percent approval rating, and Putin had a 78 percent approval rating, according to
the Levada Center.
In its revised March 2009 budget and crisis plan, the Russian government made
some careful moves intended to perhaps curtail widespread protest by attending to social
the brown journal of world affairs
Russia and the Global Financial Crisis: The End of “Putinism”?
benefits and controlling the media message that reaches the masses. While spending
on health care, education, culture, and housing were cut significantly, spending on the
media––in particular, television and radio broadcasting––increased 35 percent. Social
spending was also increased by 40 percent and social payments were indexed to inflation. Further, the National Prosperity Fund, although dropping in value, is still available to ensure pensions are paid. The potentially restive regional governments (another
problem for Yeltsin in the 1990s) were also taken care of––transfers to regional budgets
and extra-budget funds were increased an additional 15.7 percent.18
Nonetheless, Russians became accustomed under President Putin to regular
substantial increases in their annual incomes. It will be hard for President Medvedev
to meet these high expectations in the new economic environment. While widespread
protest seems unlikely, elite infighting over increasingly scarce resources will likely increase. Medvedev and Putin have ruled Russia as a relatively calm “dyad” over the past
year. Notably though, as the financial crisis hit Russia in the fall of 2008, an amendment to the Russian Constitution was hastily passed through the Russian Parliament
and signed into law. It lengthened the term of the next Russian president from four
years to six years and the Duma’s term from four to five years. At the time, Medvedev
insisted that this idea had been in the works for years. Still, the timing of the amendment was peculiar, as was the speed with which it was passed and signed into law. The
possibility remains that this move was a method by which Putin could conceivably
come back to the presidency and stay for two consecutive six-year terms––extending
through 2020 his own deadline for Russia’s emergence as a “developed” state. Should
the economic crisis worsen in Russia, it is conIt will be hard for President
ceivable that Medvedev could resign in favor of
his long-term mentor’s return to office.19 There M e d v e d e v t o m e e t t h e s e
is little doubt, given his mastery of the media high expectations in the
and repeatedly high public opinion ratings, that
Putin would handily win any snap presidential new economic environment.
election. Presumably, Putin chose Medvedev as his designated successor as President not
just because of his personal loyalty, but also because Medvedev lacks the personal and
professional ties to the cadres of former KGB elites that Putin installed in high office
throughout his tenure as president. Medvedev has been unable to install a significant
political network of his own in his one year in office, and so he remains dependent
primarily on Putin. The economic crisis has merely heightened this dependency and
political vulnerability.
In terms of foreign policy, Russia became more aggressive internationally as it
became wealthier and less democratic in the last eight years. Its incursion into Georgia
in August 2008 is perhaps the most striking example of this new, more assertive foreign
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policy. Even more recently, in early February 2009, the Russian government may have
effectively paid the government of Kyrgyzstan to close the U.S. air base there, which
served as a key supply hub to NATO forces in Afghanistan, when it granted $2 billion
of loans to Kyrgyzstan and $150 million in financial aid. Kyrgyzstan’s annual budget
is estimated at $1.1 billion, so Russian loans were a remarkable deal for the Central
Asian republic.20
In light of Russia’s new financial situation, however, and in anticipation of a far
more difficult recovery than in 1998, it is reasonable to expect that the Russian government may become less assertive in the Caucasus and Central Asia in the future. Power
(soft or hard), however, is a relative thing. Russia’s economic position is worsening at
the same time as economies elsewhere––Ukraine, the United States, and Britain, for
example––are also in steep decline.
Nonetheless, the global economic crisis represents a new strategic opportunity
to change the dynamic of U.S.–Russian relations. In order for its economy to recover,
Russia will need not only a rise in world oil prices, but also increased foreign investment. Both of these will depend on a global economic recovery. President Medvedev
has complained of “legal nihilism” in Russia over the past year. This is a particularly
important issue to press. Improved rule of law is crucial in Russia from a democratic
and economic standpoint. Investors will demand a more stable and predictable legal
environment and a more robust property rights regime. An improved legal environment can also provide the basis for enhanced social and political rights. The financial
cloud over the globe may yet prove to have a silver lining. Both the West and Russia
will emerge as chastened and potentially more reliable international partnes. W
A
Notes
1. Dmitri Medvedev, Itogi, 18 February 2008.
2. See Vladimir Putin, “Rossiia na rubezhe tysayacheletii” (Russia on the Threshold of the Millennium),
Nezavisimaiia gazeta, 30 December 1999, http://ng.ru/poloitics/1999-12-30/5_millennium.html.
3. As cited in Ira Iosebashvili, “High Inflation Raises Specter of Social Unrest,” The Moscow Times, 18
March 2009.
4. Paul Abelsky, “Russian Government to Raise Spending, Run 7.4 percent Budget Deficit,” Johnson’s
Russia List, 18 March 2009.
5. These figures are drawn from The Russian State Statistical Agency (Rosstat), Central Bank of Russia,
and Troika Diolog, as cited in Philip Hanson, “The Economic Development of Russia: Between State
Control and Liberalization,” ISPI Working Paper, no. 32 (October 2008): 3, www.ispionline.it/it/documents/WP_32_2008.pdf.
6. Ibid.
7. This section draws on my article with Michael McFaul entitled, “The Myth of the Authoritarian
Model: How Putin’s Crackdown Holds Russia Back,” Foreign Affairs (January-March 2008).
8. For a general description of the resource curse, see Terry Lynn Karl, The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms
and Petro States (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).
9. Iosebashvili.
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Russia and the Global Financial Crisis: The End of “Putinism”?
10. Hanson, 22
11. Hanson, 8.
12. See McFaul and Stoner-Weiss.
13. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank, Doing Business 2008
(Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2007), http://www.doingbusiness.org/documents/FullReport/2008/
DB08_Full_Report.pdf.
14. Olga Kuvshinova, Alena Chechel, and Adezhda Ivanitskaya, “The Crisis Budget: Russia Is Revising
Its Federal Budget for 2009,” Vedemosti, 18 March 2009.
15. These estimates come from the Chief Economic Advisor to the Russian President, Arkady Dvorkovich, as quoted in Dmitry Babich, “Time and Money” Russia Profile, 18 February 2009, http:rbtb.ru/articles/2009/02/18/190209_time.html.
16. Iosebashvili.
17. Iosebashvili.
18. Kuvshinova, Chechel, and Ivanitskaya.
19. For more on the relationship between Putin and Medvedev, see Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, “It is Still
Putin’s Russia,” Current History 107, no. 711 (October 2008).
20. “Kyrgyzstan to close US air base,” AsiaNews.it, 4 February 2009, available at:
http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=14399&geo=3&size=A.
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