, Columnist
Russia Can’t Decide Whether It’s Rich or Poor
A spat between one of the architects the post-Soviet economy and an official of the Putin regime poses an important question.
Moscow at night.
Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Is Russia a poor country or a rich one? Members of the elite are arguing about it, and the answer is important for the country’s direction after the Putin era ends.
Last week, Anatoly Chubais, architect of the painful economic reforms implemented after the collapse of the Soviet Union, made a controversial speech at an economic forum in Moscow. In it, he argued that Russia is one of the world’s least energy efficient economies, in part because power is cheap and nobody bothers to conserve energy.