RUSSIA FIRES TOP STATE ECONOMIST AFTER HE WARNED IT IS LOSING TO UKRAINE
Andrei Klepach, chief economist at Russia’s state development corporation VEB.RF, was reportedly dismissed on August 16 after Russian media revived remarks he made during a speech in May.
According to The Bell, Klepach challenged one of the Kremlin’s central wartime narratives: that Russia can simply outlast Ukraine and the West until their economies and political systems collapse.
Klepach acknowledged that Russia’s economy is unlikely to suddenly collapse. His warning was more serious: survival is not the same as success. While the Kremlin pours resources into sustaining the war, Russia is falling behind technologically and economically—not only compared with China and the United States, but in some areas compared with Ukraine.
“We have the illusion that everything will collapse there. It has not collapsed and will not collapse,” he said.
This distinction matters. Russia has kept its economy functioning through enormous military spending, state intervention, capital controls and the redirection of trade toward China and India. But those measures do not create long-term competitiveness. They consume investment, deepen technological dependence and divert skilled workers and industrial capacity away from civilian development.
Klepach’s reported dismissal does not disprove his assessment. It reinforces the political danger of saying it publicly.
The Kremlin can tolerate economists explaining how Russia will endure. It is far less willing to tolerate one explaining what Russia is losing while it survives.