A former adviser to the Russian government warned that the Russian economy “will go back 20 or 30 years.”

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A former adviser to the Russian government warned that the Russian economy “will go back 20 or 30 years.”

Russian economist and professor at the Institute of Political Sciences in Paris Sergey Guriev, photographed in the French capital on March 16, 2022 afp_tickers

This content was published on Mar 16, 2022 – 15:52

(AFP)

Sergei Guriev, a former economic adviser to the Russian government, told AFP that Russia’s economy would “go back 20 or 30 years” due to the attack on Ukraine, in which President Vladimir Putin put the future of his regime in jeopardy.

“Putin managed to destroy the Russian economy in just a few weeks,” said the former chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), currently based in France.

The professor at Sciences Po Paris, economic adviser to the Russian government in early 2010, predicted a “massive” and “potential” recession on the part of Russia due to Western sanctions.

Guriev, a former member of the board of directors of the main Russian bank Sberbank, fled his country in 2013, because he considered himself threatened by the authorities as a result of his proximity to the opposition Mikhail Khodorkovsky, imprisoned in 2003.

“Economy [rusa] It has been in recession for the past eight years. But what we are facing now is going back 20 or 30 years in terms of family income and the structure of the economy.”

“It is hard to imagine how many years it will take for GDP to return to its level in 2021,” said the economist, who called it a “tragedy,” although it “cannot be compared to the drama in Ukraine.”

Politically, Putin “reduced the life expectancy of his regime” through this “mistaken” attack on Ukraine, as he put it. He is a “misleading” president, who “overestimated the strength of the Russian army” and “underestimated” the Ukrainians and the “unity of the West.”

After the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Western countries imposed economic sanctions on the central bank, Russian imports such as oil, and oligarchs close to the Kremlin, among others.

It is difficult to predict the impact of these measures, as well as the departure of many private companies, at the present time. S&P Global advanced a 6.2% contraction of GDP in 2022, but the impact could be greater, according to Guriev.

The Russian Statistics Agency (Rosstat) indicated in mid-February that Russia, which has imposed almost no restrictions on its economy since the start of the pandemic, recorded a 4.7% annual increase in its GDP in 2021.

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