Russia's GDP grew by 0.8% in August, but consumer spending is slowing: Consumer spending rose by only 2.9%, and according to SberIndex, by just 1.2% at the end of September. Putin considers the economy to be “stable,” while industry is stagnating.

The Russian government is raising its growth forecast for 2026 to 0.6% and expects 1.4% for 2027. The OECD and the EBRD do not expect Russia's economy to grow much faster next year either.

Ahead of the Duma election, Putin estimates Russia’s growth at “up to 1%” and says inflation is under control. Economists such as Chris Weafer and Vasily Astrov, on the other hand, speak of stagnation.

The Russian Central Bank is keeping its key interest rate at 14%. Analysts now expect growth of only 0.5% for 2026—half as much as in 2025.

Economy Minister Reshetnikov raised the GDP forecast for 2026 from 0.4% to 0.6%. The consensus among analysts, however, fell to 0.5%.

Russia's GDP grew by only 0.6% in the first half of 2026, while industrial production rose by 0.1% over seven months. BOFIT, PSB, and Raiffeisenbank see the outlook as gloomy—growth is now driven almost exclusively by war-related sectors.

VEB.RF dismissed its chief economist, Andrey Klepach, on August 16, three months after a speech at the Nikitsky Club of the Moscow Stock Exchange. What Klepach said there, how Boris Grozovsky, Ben Aris, russland.capital, and Sergei Guriev assess the situation—and why it wasn’t the analysis itself that was new, but rather the fact that it was made public.

Rosstat estimates Russia's GDP growth in the second quarter of 2026 at 1.3%—significantly higher than the government, the central bank, and analysts had expected. Some experts are raising their annual forecasts, while others are warning of weak leading indicators.

The extent to which Russia's economy grew in the first half of 2026 is a matter of debate: the IEF-RAS, the VEB Institute, and the Central Bank have differing estimates of GDP growth.

Rosstat data for the first half of 2026: Russia’s gross domestic product grew by only 0.3%. Research institutes and banks are lowering their forecasts—wiiw expert Vasily Astrov speaks of stagnation.

At the same time, it raised its forecast for the increase in consumer prices at the end of 2026 to 6.0% to 7.0%.

Despite even weaker growth, however, analysts do not expect inflation to decline any faster.

To explain this steady growth, the IMF points out that Russia, as an exporter of raw materials and energy, is benefiting from higher world market prices.

The wiiw now expects aggregate economic output to rise by only 0.6%.

Has Russia's economy perhaps qualified for a "final" in competition with other countries?