Russia’s three crises of Russia, or the tale of the horsemen of the Apocalypse

The past two weeks have clearly highlighted the main crises that have gripped the Russian Federation, which is unable to adequately cope with both external and internal challenges.

In fact, Russia, which always had a serious safety cushion due to its oil and gas potential, even despite sanctions hurting the economy and the population, remained afloat due to the natural resources enjoying stable demand. However, the oil war Russia unleashed with Saudi Arabia (its initiator was Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin), led to a complete financial and economic collapse in the country.

The fall in oil prices caused inflation, budget convulsions, plunging revenues, as well as a decrease in demand for Russian energy sources in general! And all these factors of collapse together have thrown Russia back to the distant 1990s.

The second crisis that Russia is now facing is the epidemiological one. Attempts to hide the true scale of the epidemic lead to the fact that the situation is only getting worse and it is becoming increasingly difficult to hide the obvious. Russia is in coronavirus fever, which further hurts the already battered financial and economic situation and could also become a catalyst for an unprecedented social explosion. Who knows, perhaps it could even be comparable to the scale of civil war that raged a hundred years ago.

And the third crisis is constitutional. In fact, Putin’s coronation is not just a daring and unceremonious slap in the constitution’s face, but also a challenge to those who have long seen themselves take over the throne now occupied by an irreplaceable pensioner.

And therefore, the year of 2020 may become a turning point in history of the Russian Federation. Indeed, the three horsemen of the Apocalypse led the country into the new decade: financial, epidemiological, and constitutional crises. And Putin himself is the fourth one.