Russia Clearly Nervous As Putin Faces Economic Challenges

Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke on the economy during the plenary session of the 28th Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF 2025) in Saint Petersburg.

At the SPIEF 2025, Russia’s Minister for Economic Development, Maxim Reshetnikov, warned that the country’s economy was teetering on the brink of recession.

However, he stunned the audience when he said, "We have an old rule. Where the foot of a Russian soldier steps, that's ours," BBC News Russia Editor Steve Rosenberg reported.

“Imagine you're the leader of a country hosting an economic forum, seeking foreign investment and cooperation. Boasting about your army seizing foreign lands wouldn’t appear to be the most effective way to achieve this. But that’s the point,” Rosenberg wrote.

“Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the state of the economy has been secondary to the goal of winning the war against Ukraine. That is the Kremlin’s overarching priority. True, Russia’s economy has been growing, but largely due to massive state spending on the defense sector and military-industrial complex.”

“As far as the ‘murder’ of the Russian economy is concerned, as a famous writer once said—‘rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated,’” Putin declared.

But the Russian government is clearly nervous. At the forum, Russia’s Minister for Economic Development, Maxim Reshetnikov, warned that the country’s economy was teetering on the brink of recession.

“We grew for two years at a fairly high pace because unused resources were activated,” said Russian Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina. “We need to understand that many of those resources have truly been exhausted.”