Coronavirus Tightens Putin’s Economic Grip

Vladimir Putin has steadily expanded the Russian state’s involvement in an economy that’s increasingly dominated by large companies. The coronavirus crisis, with its lopsided financial assistance that benefits big employers more than entrepreneurs, looks set to continue this process. In the short term, this will strengthen the hand of a vulnerable president. Over the longer term, it spells stagnation.

Governments almost everywhere have had to intervene in their industries over the past few months as they scramble to contain the fallout from Covid-19, bailing out airlines, carmakers and more. Moscow, though, has been slowly broadening its own economic presence since the early 2000s, constructing a corporate landscape that now leans on fewer sectors, with fewer competitors — a phenomenon heightened by international sanctions and a policy of self-reliance.