The liquidity paradox
The Russian economy today lives at two speeds. In the military sector, liquidity is abundant, fueled by the state printing machine. In the civil sector, the scenario is one of financial desert. This lack of liquidity is a deliberate tool by the Central Bank to try to stop galloping inflation that erodes purchasing power. However, the result is a “frozen” economy where the recent drop in the reference rate to 16%, as early as December 2025, is seen as a belated relief for an already exhausted private sector.
Sergey Chemezov’s criticisms — which despite being the best-known voice are not the only ones to be heard in the Kremlin, according to the international press — reach the West not through clandestine espionage, but through surprisingly public channels: they are disclosed in speeches at the Federation Council, strategic interviews with foreign media and the Telegram informational battlefield, where the Russian elite signals its despair in the face of economic isolation.
The “technical bunker” and the social abyss
At the center of this hurricane is Elvira Nabiullina. The governor of the Russian Central Bank maintains an increasingly precarious technical independence, serving as a “lightning rod” for criticism that no one dares to direct directly at Putin.
While state banks, such as Sberbank, celebrate record profits due to brutal interest margins, ordinary citizens find themselves excluded from the real estate and consumption market, with personal loans exceeding 27% per year. Therefore, buying goods in installments, such as a car or even an appliance, is a virtual impossibility for what remains of the middle class.
The Chinese “Trojan horse”
Faced with the cutting of ties with the West, Russia surrendered itself into the arms of Beijing. China is today the “great substitute”, controlling 62% of the Russian car market and dominating the technology sector.
But this help is not free. China profits from massive energy discounts — buying Russian gas at 10% below market price — and uses the Yuan to tie Russian financial sovereignty to its interests. Russia, once a superpower, is currently at risk of becoming a “junior partner” or even a vassal state of China regardless of when the war in Ukraine ends (and the outcome of its outcome).
More than just cyclical support, this dependence is becoming structural and difficult to reversible. Russia destroyed its “bridges” with Europe, losing the ability to compete with customers. By redirecting its entire energy infrastructure and payment systems exclusively to the East, Moscow went from being a global supplier to a “captive supplier”. Without access to Western technology, Russian industrial standards — from 5G to civil aviation to AI… — will become dictated by Beijing, ensuring that any future Russian growth occurs only within the parameters defined by Chinese national interest.
Fissures and ghosts of the past
Inside the Kremlin, factions led by names like Dmitry Kozak warn of the risk of an irreversible technological delay. However, Putin seems mesmerized by immediate survival.
The comparison with the decline of the Soviet Union in the 1980s is inevitable: the same excessive military spending and the same dependence on oil. But there is an aggravating factor in 2025: the “brain hemorrhage”.
Almost a million Russians, mostly young people and computer technology experts, left the country between 2022 and the end of this year, leaving behind an aging and less innovative demographic structure.
Even in this scenario, the possibility of regime change in Russia remains blocked by fear and control by security agencies. But what is certain is that erosion is continuous.
Whatever happens in Ukraine, with growing internal pressure at least on the economic side, with neighbors whose help today will become a potential threat tomorrow and in the face of a drain on talent with no end in sight, Putin’s imperial dream increasingly appears to be a way of mortgaging any possibility of the Russian people living in a developed and happy way.
It is difficult not to find some irony in the evident parallelism with what their Bolshevik compatriots ended up doing, just over a century ago, albeit using other methods, but with the same results.