Podcast: Economic Turbulence And Russia's Jittery Elite
A woman passes by a sign displaying currency exchange rates in Moscow on June 1.
The price of oil is falling. The ruble is dropping. And fears abound that contagion from the crisis in the eurozone could spread to Russia. Former Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin says there is a 50 percent chance that the Russian economy could go into recession.
What would it mean if an economic crisis compounded Russia's current political turmoil?
President Vladimir Putin has already lost the middle class. Would he lose the working classes, as well? Would industrial and agrarian unrest follow?
In the latest edition of "The Power Vertical Podcast," I sit down with Kirill Kobrin, managing editor of RFE/RL's Russian Service -- who is back from a trip to Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod -- to discuss these issues.
