Chairman of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation Elvira Nabiullina has regularly declassified the array of data on the state of the Russian economy, access to which was closed after the start of Moscow in Ukraine. This was reported by The Financial Times (FT) on Sunday, January 29, citing three knowledge sources.

Among the classified information is information about reserves in foreign currency and exports. Expenditure on closed budget items rose by 40 percent to $95 billion (87 billion euros), writes the FT. For comparison, at the pre-war meeting they amount to 54 billion dollars (49 billion euros), which will be discussed in the publication. The data on foreign trade of the Russian Federation have ceased to be published.

The Kremlin announces the disclosure of information about the threat of condemnation of the West.

“We should return to the appropriate disclosure of information – with some exceptions – investors could invest in securities,” Nabiullina, in turn, believes.

Analysts have to resort to cross-checking

According to the three interlocutors, the lack of transparency in the statistics has so confused the economic picture that Russia’s capabilities have withstood Western surveillance, impressing even politicians known for access to classified information.

According to analysts, experts have begun to resort to alternative sources and cross-data transfer. Thus, Sofya Donets, an economist for Russia and the CIS at the Renaissance Capital investment company, explained that for the dynamics of exports and imports, experts study the fiscal data of VAT on imports of goods, trade statistics on the detection of Russian counterparties and data on shipping.

FT: Putin distanced himself from the economic team

“A hybrid war is being waged against Russia, including an economic one. “Everyone who needs to know, everyone involved in the economic policy making process, has access to a whole range of data, statistics and so on,” he added.

Meanwhile, according to the FT, citing a source, Putin has distanced himself from his economic team and consults only with a narrowing circle of exports in a hard line that “tells him what he wants to get.”

Economist, professor at IE Business School in Madrid Maxim Mironov in September 2022 in an interview with DW: “Even if the Russian economy is performing worse than six months ago, this is not enough to prevent Putin from financing the war.”

Yale School of Management professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, on the air of the British radio station Times Radio, in turn, expressed the opinion that the Russian economy can “survive in the presence of inaccessibility for about two years” – assuming that the West will steadily believe.

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