Cumulative drop in 2022-2023 will be 7-8% and may surpass the record decline in 2009 (-7.8%). This is if there are no external economic shocks.

With a large-scale recession in the world, oil prices may fall by 2 or more times. This will be a devastating blow to budget revenues. In addition, in the context of low oil prices, the effectiveness of Western sanctions against Russian commodity exports will sharply increase. “If oil costs, conditionally, $150 per barrel, there will always be someone who is ready to buy it at a 30% discount, bypassing the sanctions,” says Oleg Itskhoki, a professor at the University of California. “It’s a completely different situation when the global economy is slowing down.” In such a situation, Russia will face a domino effect: the war will increase costs, incomes will disappear. An economic model based on commodity exports will go into a clinch. The consequences of this are difficult to calculate, but they are sure to be colossal.

The standard of living of the population, especially the poor, will fall. Inflation will accelerate sharply. This could undermine the loyalty of the siloviki, who in Putin's Russia constituted a "parallel middle class" thanks to ever-increasing extra rations. If the payments to the mobilized are depreciated, then today's sporadic riots could turn into a soldier's revolution. But that's not all. The exhaustion of raw material rent will also undermine the way the ruling class is fed, accustomed to endlessly exploiting the state budget through state orders, corruption, and simply due to high salaries.

In Russian history, such a combination of circumstances has repeatedly led to upheavals and revolutions. The chronic shortage of silver to pay for the troops determined the dynamics of the "rebellious" XVII century. The attempt of Paul I to reorient the country from Great Britain to France cost the landowners income and resulted in a blow with a snuffbox on the clearest temple. The instant collapse of the Romanov monarchy in February 1917 also had similar causes. The soldiers were dead tired of the incomprehensible war, and the ruling class was dissatisfied with the fall in the income of grain exports. And this, of course, is not a Russian identity, but a universal rule. In the end, the Great French Revolution was a reaction to the total national bankruptcy to which the country was led by the Bourbon regime.

Now it is very difficult to imagine changes in Russia. The regime has uprooted any opposition activity, and puts people in jail for talking about alternatives. Without a subject of change, it is a fronting elite or a mass movement from below, the situation is experienced as a stoppage of time. But this is precisely what speaks of the fragility of the existing order. At any moment, it can fall apart by itself. Just a few months ago, it was almost impossible to believe that Putin's army was suffering humiliating defeats on the front lines. But they started. Soon, defeats will also begin on the “internal political track”. Moreover, at first it will not even be clear who the formidable adversary is, inflicting mortal blows on the outwardly powerful dictatorship.