The Center for Strategic Studies in Moscow reports that Vladimir Putin is facing discrete political and economic risks due to Eurozone turmoil.
Greece leaving the euro could trigger a global crisis that would drop the price of oil, writes institute chief Mikhail Dmitriev, meaning a worsened Russian economy. That could lead to increased anti-Putin sentiment and more political repression.
Ksenia Yudaeva, chief economist at Sberbank, the country’s biggest lender, said Russia’s economy could contract 2.1 percent, with $95 billion in capital leaving the country in a year, should the euro start to crumble.
“This [departing] capital,” added Dmitriev in Bloomberg News, “is flying into the epicenter of the global financial crisis, which is in Europe. That is actually the same as creating a food supply in the center of an atomic explosion.”
Bank of America sees Russian oil dropping to $60-$80 should Greece and other nations leave the Eurozone. Russian oil prices need to stay around $127 per barrel for the government to balance the budget this year.
Read more about the study in Bloomberg News.
