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<\/h2>\n<\/h2>\nThe promise implicitly made three years ago by the Kremlin\u2014to wage war without making its population pay the price\u2014has not been kept. This \u201cspecial operation,\u201d supposedly without rationing, without a decline in living standards, and without any visible rupture\u2014this remote war, in a way\u2014is no longer a fiction for the Russian people.<\/p>\n
Expected to reach barely 0.4% in 2026 after more than 4% two years earlier, growth is slowing sharply, reserves are shrinking, and the state is tightening the screws. Nearly 40% of public spending is now absorbed by defense and security. Unemployment at 2% is not a sign of prosperity, but the symptom of an economy under extreme strain, as men are either at the front\u2014or in arms factories. The rest of the country is running short of manpower: three million workers are expected to be missing by 2030. And for good reason, since the production of shells prevents the production of tractors, machinery, and durable wealth. Russia\u2019s civilian economy is withering, pulled into the military logic. As a result, Russians are paying more and receiving less: their country has officially entered a full-fledged war economy.<\/p>\n
In this context, the traditional instruments of regulation no longer work. Led by Elvira Nabiullina, the central bank has raised interest rates to as high as 21% in order to contain double-digit inflation. An orthodox response\u2014but a largely ineffective one\u2014because the problem does not stem at all from excessive demand, but from a severely diminished supply. How does one fight a shortage of workers and productive capacity with interest rates\u2026 and desperately attempt to rebalance a militarized economy using tools designed for ordinary economic cycles?<\/p>\n
More fundamentally, monetary policy in Russia has ceased to be at the heart of economic management. Inevitably, the real engine lies in military spending decided by the Kremlin, beyond any effective constraint. While the central bank\u2019s independence survives in theory, in practice it has been reduced to the role of a shock absorber. Nabiullina no longer steers the Russian economy; she is trying to limit the damage. A lucid technocrat, an orthodox guardian of the ruble, she has disappeared from public view in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
As early as 2022, she was already revealing her reservations about certain measures imposed by the Kremlin, describing capital controls as a \u201cforced decision.\u201d She publicly expressed her discomfort regarding the potential seizure of foreign banks\u2019 subsidiaries, a rare sign of technocratic dissent in an increasingly centralized system. Is the true test of an institution not its ability to survive the will of its master?<\/p>\n
The answer lies in her absence, as she did not appear at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum on June 4, nor at the financial conference on June 9, nor at the highly important meeting chaired by Vladimir Putin on June 10 regarding inflation and the key interest rate. Long regarded as one of the most respected central bankers among the so-called emerging nations, she now appears to have become a sacrificial victim.<\/p>\n
The moment of truth cannot be far off\u2014the moment when the authorities will no longer seek to cushion the shock for the population, but instead transfer it to them. For the Russian people, the war will soon cease to be abstract and will begin to appear on grocery receipts, on pay slips, and in public services that are closing or deteriorating. This is where the turning point of Putin\u2019s undertaking will be decided: not on the front line, but in the collective consciousness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The End of the Illusion The promise implicitly made three years ago by the Kremlin\u2014to wage war without making its population pay the price\u2014has not been kept. This \u201cspecial operation,\u201d supposedly without rationing, without a decline in living standards, and without any visible rupture\u2014this remote war, in a way\u2014is no longer a fiction for the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":31777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[648943374,648943373,648943375],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiscal-dominance","category-war-economy","category-war-in-ukraine"],"yoast_head":"\n