President Vladimir Putin’s annual address to the Russian Federal Assembly in the Kremlin on December 4 occurred in the midst of a perfect financial storm, which he largely ignored. His unspoken main message was that no economic reforms would take place. But the speech might have been his last opportunity to use reforms to save his regime from the financial turmoil that has just started. The Russian economy has been hit by a triple whammy—poor structural policies, Western financial sanctions, and the oil price collapse. Each is producing negative effects that are reinforcing each other to make the situation ... (full story)