Top Russian economist ousted after warning of growing costs of Ukraine war 

Andrey Klepach has been removed as the chief economist at Russia’s state development bank VEB, Russian media reported, after a speech was made public in which he warned that Russia’s economy was being harmed by the war on Ukraine.

Russian state news agency TASS reported on Sunday that Klepach no longer held the position at the bank.

“Andrey Klepach is no longer serving as chief economist at VEB.RF. His successor will soon be appointed. The candidate has already been selected,” the bank said in a statement cited by TASS.

Klepach, who was appointed to the role in 2014, also confirmed his dismissal ⁠to the Reuters news agency.

Klepach reportedly warned of the economic damage from the war at a financial forum in May, but the comments were only reported last week.

“We are falling behind. We are losing both the technological and economic competition in the world. And we are losing it not only to China and the United States, in some ways ⁠we are losing it to Ukraine too,” he said, adding that this was due to Kyiv receiving financial support from the West.

Klepach predicted that the economic problems caused by the Ukraine war would create a social crisis. “We will not win the competition in this war of attrition. We have the illusion that everything there (in Ukraine) will collapse. It has not collapsed and will not collapse. Our costs are mounting,” he said.

The speech, published on the website of the Nikitsky Club – a forum of economists, academics and government officials – marked a rare public critique by a senior figure at a state institution of the costs of continuing the war that Moscow launched in 2022.

Klepach has held several roles at economic institutions and worked at the Ministry of Economic Development for 10 years before joining VEB.

Pressure from Ukraine

During his speech in May, Klepach warned that Russia’s resilience to ⁠Western sanctions was being severely tested due to Ukraine’s strategy to hit Russia’s energy and logistics infrastructure. He pointed to rising income inequality and a slower gross domestic product growth rate than in the US and Ukraine.

In June, the Russian central bank suggested the economy might not grow at all this ⁠year.

President Vladimir Putin ⁠reassured Russians the economy is stable despite what he called external attempts to ⁠undermine it.

“Economically we will not collapse, but our lag will continue to grow, with all the resulting consequences,” Klepach said in his speech, predicting a social crisis could arise “precisely when nobody is particularly expecting it”.

Klepach also criticised governance in Russia.

“The quality of governance is almost constantly deteriorating,” he said. “Decisions are being made all the time that have an extremely low level of justification but long-term strategic consequences.”