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Russia Starts to Crash - Joe Blogs
Russia’s wartime economic boom is losing momentum.
New data shows that Russia’s GDP fell by 2.1% year-on-year in January, marking the first contraction since March 2023. After two years of strong growth driven by defense spending and massive government stimulus, the latest figures suggest the Russian economy is beginning to slow.
Consumer spending is weakening, retail sales growth has dropped sharply, and industrial output is starting to decline. At the same time, businesses and households are facing very high borrowing costs, making investment and spending increasingly difficult.
Russia’s wartime economy helped drive growth in 2023 and 2024, but the latest data suggests that model is running out of steam.
In this video I break down the latest economic data, explain what’s really happening inside the Russian economy, and look at why 2026 could become a very difficult year for Russia economically.
Because while Russia’s economy has not collapsed, the latest numbers show that the pressure is building — and the slowdown is becoming much harder to ignore.