Putin is the Head of a Russian State on the Brink of Economic Collapse: Leonid Putin, meet Vladimir Brezhnev. Serious Russian economists are increasingly of the opinion that Russia is in deep trouble and that Putin’s policies are bringing it to the point of collapse.
In that sense, Putin’s Russia is following in the footsteps of Brezhnev’s USSR.
The Russian Economy Is In Trouble
A case in point is the view of one of Russia’s leading mathematicians, Academician Robert Nigmatulin, who told the Moscow Economic Forum in April 2026 that Russia’s economy is experiencing an existential crisis.
Reform won’t do the trick anymore. Restructuring—shades of Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika!—is imperative. But economic restructuring presupposes political restructuring, which is impossible as long as Putin remains in power and believes, correctly, that his survival hinges on continuing the war against Ukraine.
An ethnic Bashkir, the 85-year-old Nigmatulin is a distinguished member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He served as the president of Bashkortostan’s Academy of Sciences and is a laureate of the USSR State Prize. In a word, he’s an authority, a full-fledged member of the Russian establishment, and no rabble-rouser.
His views must be taken seriously.
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