Russia’s state development bank VEB.RF has fired its chief economist Andrey Klepach after he publicly warned that Moscow cannot win a prolonged economic war against the West.
Klepach, who served as VEB’s top economist for 12 years, was dismissed on August 16 after excerpts from a speech he delivered at the Moscow Exchange’s Nikitsky Club in May were widely circulated in Russian media. According to a report by independent outlet The Bell, VEB head Igor Shuvalov fired Klepach “on orders from above.”
Economist Warned of Social Crisis
In his May speech, Klepach painted a dire picture of Russia’s economic trajectory. He stated that the costs to the domestic economy from sanctions and the Western blockade are rising, and that damage from Ukrainian strikes on ports, infrastructure, and chemical and oil plants is increasing. “We’re falling behind. We’re losing both the technological and economic competition on the global stage,” Klepach said, according to multiple media reports.
“We’re not only losing to China and the U.S. – in some respects, we’re losing to Ukraine as well. We have this illusion that everything over there will collapse. It hasn’t collapsed and it won’t. Our costs are mounting.”
Klepach went further, warning of a potential social crisis in Russia “at a time when no one is particularly expecting it,” and drew comparisons to the situations preceding the February Revolution of 1917 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
A Leading Voice Silenced
Before joining VEB, Klepach spent a decade at Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development, including four years as deputy minister under three different heads: Elvira Nabiullina, Andrei Belousov, and Alexei Ulyukaev. He began his career as director of the department of macroeconomic forecasting.
VEB.RF is a key Russian state-owned bank that finances the Kremlin’s national projects and holds the status of a state development corporation. The dismissal of such a senior figure sends a signal about the Kremlin’s intolerance for dissenting economic analysis, even from within its own institutions.
Independent Economists Push Back
Alexandra Prokopenko, a senior research fellow at the Carnegie Berlin Center, commented on the dismissal: “The dismissal of Klepach – one of Russia’s best macroeconomists – is unlikely to delay the looming crisis he has been warning about. Only propagandists on the government payroll – not respected economists – could fail to see the problems in economic growth rates barely above zero, a two-speed industrial sector, and a decline in investment amid rising unproductive defense spending.”
The Institute for the Study of War noted in its August 18 assessment that there is considerable evidence Klepach’s economic warnings align with reality. Russian Central Bank data shows that Russians withdrew $4.5 billion in June 2026, $7.3 billion in July, and $3.4 billion in the first two weeks of August alone. Meanwhile, Russian businesses have transferred 384 billion rubles in “voluntary” contributions to the defense effort since Putin personally called on top business leaders to do so in March.
Sources: The Bell; Reuters; The Guardian; Institute for the Study of War; The Moscow Times; Kyiv Independent
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