Originally posted on August 18, 2017:

Since some people didn’t quite understand what I meant when I compared Ancient Egypt to Russia, I’ll make a post for clarification. What’s important to understand is that Russia isn’t simply a country. It’s a society. It’s a civilization, like Ancient Egypt was a civilization. Ancient Egypt had Ancient Egyptian culture. Russia has Russian culture. The territory of Russian civilization is what went into the Russian Empire, before it collapsed in 1918. First of all, for those who are interested in this history and for those who want to know what I’m talking about, reading Carroll Quigley’s book ‘The Evolution of Civilizations: An Introduction to Historical Analysis’ (1961) is a must.

Since every civilization goes through seven stages, which are explained in Quigley’s book, I will first list how the seven stages applied to Ancient Egypt. The history of Ancient Egypt can be divided as follows:

1. Mixture – 5,500 BC to 4,000 BC
2. Gestation – 4,000 BC to 3,500 BC (Prehistoric Egypt)
3. Expansion – 3,500 BC to 2,200 BC (Early Dynastic Period and Old Kingdom)
4. First Conflict Period – 2,200 BC to 2,050 BC (1st Intermediate Period)
5. First Post-Expansion Empire – 2,050 BC to 1,650 BC (Middle Kingdom)
6. Second Conflict Period – 1,650 BC to 1,550 BC (2nd Intermediate Period)
7. Second Post-Expansion Empire – 1,550 BC to 1,100 BC (New Kingdom)
8. Decay – 1,000 BC to 350 BC (3rd Intermediate Period)
9. Invasion – 350 BC to 300 BC (Late Period and Macedonian and Ptolemaic Egypt)

As you can see, the age of expansion of Egyptian civilization lasted for about 1,300 years. What’s important to point out is that the “instrument of expansion” of this civilization was the state. What this means is that the state dominated Ancient Egyptian society. It was the state that invested its surplus wealth in the period of expansion, when there was growth of territory, population, production, and knowledge in Ancient Egypt. The head of the state (the pharaoh) was a divine, absolute monarch. After a period of instability and conflict (2,200 BC to 2,050 BC), which began after the period of expansion came to an end, Ancient Egypt was united by Pharaoh Mentuhotep II, who was from the north of Egypt. Mentuhotep II created the Middle Kingdom, which was the first military (post-expansion) empire of Ancient Egypt. For a time, the Middle Kingdom brought stability and prosperity to Ancient Egypt, just like any other post-expansion empire in any other civilization. After the collapse of the Middle Kingdom, Ancient Egypt was thrown into a second period of instability and conflict that lasted from 1,650 BC to 1,550 BC. This period of conflict came to an end with the creation of the New Kingdom of Egypt, which was the second, and final, post-expansion empire of Ancient Egypt. The New Kingdom was created by Pharaoh Ahmose I, who expelled the Hyksos from Egypt. The most famous pharaoh of the New Kingdom was, of course, Ramesses II. Since the New Kingdom was the last post-expansion empire of Egyptian civilization, this means that it was the universal empire of this civilization. What this also means is that Egyptian civilization had only two post-expansion empires. For example, Chinese civilization, which existed from 400 AD to 1930 AD, had four post-expansion empires. Anyway, when the New Kingdom entered into decay and depression, Egyptian civilization began dying. This civilization and its culture were finished off in 300 BC by the invading Greeks under the leadership of Alexander the Great.

Now let’s look at Russian civilization. The core of Russian civilization (where Russian culture was born) is the Northern Flatlands. Russian culture is heavily influenced by the culture of Classical civilization, which existed from 1,200 BC to 500 AD. The history of Russia can be divided as follows:

1. Mixture – 500 AD to 1,300 AD (period of the Russian principalities)
2. Gestation – 1,300 AD to 1,500 AD (period of Mongol domination)
3. Expansion – 1,500 AD to 1,900 AD (Tsardom of Russia and Imperial Russia)
4. First Conflict Period – 1,900 AD to 1,920 AD
5. First Post-Expansion Empire – 1,920 AD to 1,985 AD (Soviet Union)
6. Second Conflict Period – 1,985 AD – ?

Now, a few conclusions have to be made about Russian history so far because very few people understand what happened in Russia, especially in the 20th century, because of all the distortions and lies. First of all, Russian culture was borrowed mostly from Byzantine civilization. This culture has its roots in Classical civilization. Russian culture was born on the territory of a part of present-day European Russia and a part of present-day Ukraine. The “instrument of expansion” of Russian civilization was the state, just like in Egyptian civilization. The period of expansion of Russian civilization lasted from about 1,500 AD to about 1,900 AD (the so-called imperial period of the tsars). The state formed as the “instrument of expansion” in the Grand Duchy of Moscow, while the Russian principalities were under the so-called Mongol yoke. After the collapse of the Golden Horde, the state of Moscow began fighting for independence from the Mongols. After this independence, the state began investing the surplus that accumulated in its hands on a large scale and Russian civilization entered its period of expansion (which lasted for about 400 years). During this period of expansion, the Russians moved eastward (toward the Pacific Ocean), southward (toward the Black Sea), and westward (toward Poland and Scandinavia). The Russian Empire, which was created in the course of expansion of Russian civilization, collapsed in 1918. This brings us to the 20th century and to some serious changes in Russian civilization. Important points are as follows:

1. The Russian Empire represented the age of expansion of Russian civilization. Therefore, this period, which lasted from 1,500 AD to 1,900 AD, can be considered as the most stable and prosperous in Russian history.
2. The so-called Russian Civil War, which began in 1918, was only a part of the first period of conflict of Russian civilization. This period of conflict began in 1900, when the state became a structure of vested interests during the rule of Tsar Nicholas II, to 1920, when the Russian Civil War came to an end.
3. In the course of several years, the Bolsheviks, who managed to seize power in the north of European Russia, defeated other political units on the territory of Russian civilization. The Bolsheviks managed to remain in power by defeating their opponents in Russia. Some of these opponents, who represented the White movement, were supported by some Western imperialist powers. This process of conflict and conquest, which is always quite bloody, occurs several times in the life of every civilization, and, therefore, this means that the Bolsheviks fought not because they were Jews or because they were communists but because they had to do this in order to remain in power. In 1922, the Bolsheviks created the Soviet Union, which was the first post-expansion empire of Russian civilization. The Soviet period was, for a time, a period of stability and prosperity.
4. The social-economic system of the Soviet Union was not communism (communism, as described by Karl Marx, hasn’t existed anywhere in the world so far). It was the Russian state system with a planned economy, which was not radically different from the one that existed under the tsars. Capitalism and other forms of accumulation of surplus existed in the Russian Empire, but the state (the tsar, the princes, the government officials) ruled the Russian Empire, and the state was responsible for the growth of Russia. In the Soviet Union, the state system, which was controlled by the communist party, performed almost all economic functions for a time out of necessity, from the abandonment of the NEP in 1928 to the beginning of Perestroika in 1985. When the massive spending that’s associated with the creation of a post-expansion empire began to come to an end after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, other forms of accumulation of surplus began to grow in importance (examples are “shadow economy” or “black market”).
5. Some people say that the Soviet Union is different from the Russian Empire. I say, “Of course, it is. What’s surprising about this?” The Russian Empire represented the age of expansion of Russian civilization. But the Soviet Union was the first military (post-expansion) empire of Russian civilization. This means that the Soviet Union behaved according to the rules of post-expansion empires. The post-expansion empire that Western people are most familiar with is the Roman Empire, which was the last post-expansion empire of Classical civilization. Therefore, the Bolsheviks ended up conquering most of the territory of Russian civilization, like the Romans conquered the territory of Classical civilization. The military played an important role in the Soviet Union, like it did in the Roman Empire. The Soviets built many statues and monuments, like the Romans did. The Soviets built roads, dams, and power plants, like the Romans built roads and aquaducts. Political infighting and assassination attempts often happened in the Soviet Union, like in the Roman Empire. Soviet leaders behaved, and even dressed, similar to Roman emperors. The Soviets held military parades, like the Romans did. Even the Soviet state emblem looks similar to the Roman emblem. And, finally, because of its fast, turbulent rise and successes, the Soviet Union is, like many other post-expansion empires, historically very interesting. By the way, I don’t know why historians in Russia and in the West don’t see these obvious similarities between the Soviet Union and the Roman Empire. I know that history in the West is heavily politicized and falsified, and that it’s used for propaganda purposes, but these similarities should be obvious to anyone with a good knowledge of history.
6. Carroll Quigley did make a mistake when he tried to predict the future of Russian civilization in his books. He wrote that the Soviet Union represents the second age of expansion of Russian civilization. Now that the Soviet Union is gone, it is safe to say that Quigley was wrong, although Quigley did point out that he wasn’t entirely sure about what stage Russian civilization is in. I suppose that Quigley considered the Soviet period to be the second age of expansion of Russian civilization because of the impressive technological and scientific achievements of the Soviet Union. There was also a growth of population, of production, and of knowledge in the Soviet Union. But this isn’t really surprising. Many post-expansion empires are progressive and strong while they’re growing.
7. The Soviet Union “collapsed” earlier than it should have because it was quickly undermined by the USA and the rest of the West when it began going into decline and depression in 1965. Incompetent, uninformed, and treacherous Soviet leaders like Mikhail Gorbachev appeared. They lacked strategy and they cared mostly about their class interests. The West made use of them and managed to quickly break up the Soviet Union while George H. W. Bush was the president of the USA. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the West managed to take advantage of the disorder on the territory of Russian civilization and to plunder Russia and other post-Soviet republics. This plundering of former Soviet republics allowed the capitalist ruling class of the West to soften the economic crisis of capitalism until 2008.
8. After the Soviet Union collapsed, Russian civilization entered its second period of conflict and instability. The role of the state, which was the provider and enabler of economic growth in the Soviet Union, was reduced to a minimum in almost all post-Soviet republics in the 1990s. Soviet assets (mainly the natural resources and the industrial companies) were divided among new pro-Western monopoly capitalists (the oligarchs) in the 1990s. These petty, colonial capitalists now form a part of the ruling class in former Soviet republics, and they are not beneficial for the society because they don’t invest their surplus or they invest very little of it. In other words, serious economic growth can’t come from these capitalists or from the weakened state system that appeared in the Russian Federation after 1985. In addition, some of these capitalists pretty much act like agents of the USA and the West.
9. The Russian Federation is not a successor to the Soviet Union. The Russian Federation is, like other post-Soviet republics, simply a leftover from the Soviet Union. It’s important to remember that many of the people who made up the late-Soviet ruling class then began to make up the ruling classes of post-Soviet republics in the 1990s. What this means is that there was no revolution or revival in Russia in 1991. There was only a collapse and the beginning of a severe crisis. It’s worth pointing out that the crisis was softened for a time after Vladimir Putin became the president of Russia in 2000. The reason why this happened is because of Putin’s more independent economic course, a growth of the state sector, and a growth of the energy sector. The growth of state power under Putin brought some stability and economic growth to Russia, and there has been something of a move away from dependency on the West, though Russia very much remains an economic and cultural colony of the West. Because of this, and because of Putin’s more independent foreign policy, Putin has become a demon in the eyes of American imperialists. Hence, there’s all of the anti-Putin and anti-Russian propaganda in the West. This anti-Russian propaganda is considerably more offensive and absurd than the anti-Russian propaganda that existed during the Cold War. This can be explained by the fact that Western civilization is also in a crisis. The American-dominated order has been shaking since the 1960s.
10. Some propagandists in the USA (the American Empire) and other Western propagandists are now openly gloating about how they allegedly defeated the Soviet Union and plunged Russians into poverty, which is something that they’ve done to many other nations too. Some of them even go as far as saying that the Soviet Union was like Ancient Carthage and the United States like the Roman Republic. Um, no. Sorry, guys. I’ll have to disagree. New post-expansion empires will appear on the territory of Russian civilization in the future. They will be similar to the Soviet Union in structure, if not in ideology. The destruction of the Soviet Union did not mean the destruction of Russia and Russian culture. The current period of conflict in Russian civilization will likely last a long time. Probably a century or more. But some political unit will eventually conquer the territory of Russian civilization and create the second post-expansion empire (the Soviet Union was the first).

Waterfront is a major intermodal public transportation facility and the main transit terminus in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is located on West Cordova Street in Downtown Vancouver, between Granville and Seymour Street. The station is also accessible via two other street-level entrances, one on Howe Street to the west for direct access to the Expo Line and another on Granville Street to the south for direct access to the Canada Line.

The station is within walking distance of Vancouver’s historical Gastown district, Canada Place, Convention & Exhibition Centre, Harbour Centre, Sinclair Centre, and the Vancouver Harbour Flight Centre float plane terminal. A heliport operated by Helijet, along with the downtown campuses for Simon Fraser University and the British Columbia Institute of Technology, are also located within the vicinity of the station.

Waterfront station was built by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) and opened on August 1, 1914. It was the Pacific terminus for the CPR’s transcontinental passenger trains to Montreal, Quebec and Toronto, Ontario. The current station is the third CPR station. The previous CPR station was located one block west, at the foot of Granville, and unlike the current classical-styled Waterfront station was built in “railway gothic” like the CPR’s many railway hotels.

In 1978, when Via Rail took over the passenger operations of the CPR and the Canadian National Railway, it continued using both railways’ stations in Vancouver, but a year later, Via consolidated its Vancouver operations at Pacific Central Station, the CN station near False Creek, and ceased using the CPR station. The last scheduled Via passenger train to use Waterfront station departed on October 27, 1979.

Waterfront station’s transformation into a public intermodal transit facility began in 1977. That year, the SeaBus began operating out of a purpose-built floating pier that was connected to the main terminal building via an overhead walkway above the CPR tracks. The CPR’s passenger platform and some of its tracks were torn up in the early 1980s to make way for the guideway of the original SkyTrain line (Expo Line), which opened on December 11, 1985. During Expo 86, SkyTrain operated special shuttle trains between Waterfront station and Stadium–Chinatown station (then named Stadium station), connecting the Canadian Pavilion at Canada Place to the main Expo site along False Creek.

A private ferry company, Royal SeaLink Express, ran passenger ferries from a new dock on the west side of the SeaBus terminal to Victoria and Nanaimo in the early 1990s, but ultimately folded. In 2003, HarbourLynx began operating out of Royal Sealink’s old facility at the SeaBus terminal. In 2006, following major engine problems with their only vessel, they folded as well.

In 1995, platforms were built adjacent to the SkyTrain station for the West Coast Express, which uses the existing CPR tracks. The platforms for the West Coast Express were built in the same location as the old CPR platforms.

In 2002, Millennium Line trains began to share tracks with the Expo Line at Waterfront station. The lines continued to share tracks until late 2016, when an Expo Line branch to Production Way–University station was created in replacement of the Millennium Line service between VCC–Clark and Waterfront stations.

In 2009, the Canada Line opened with separate platforms which are accessible via the main station building, but require leaving the fare paid zone when transferring between other modes. Waterfront station serves as a common terminus point for both the Expo Line and the Canada Line.

Waterfront station was one of the first stations to receive TransLink’s “T” signage, denoting a transit station. This signage was originally installed in the downtown core of Vancouver to help visitors during the 2010 Olympics, as it made transit hubs easier to identify.

In 2018, TransLink announced that Waterfront’s Canada Line platforms, as well as two other stations on the line located within downtown Vancouver, would receive an accessibility upgrade which includes additional escalators, as most Canada Line stations were built with only up escalators initially. Construction is expected to begin in early 2019.

Waterfront’s main station building was designed in a neoclassical style, with a symmetrical red-brick facade dominated by a row of smooth, white Ionic order columns. The Ionic columns are repeated in the grand interior hall, flanking the perimeter of the space. The main hall features two large clocks facing each other high on the east and west walls. Paintings depicting various scenic Canadian landscapes, completed in 1916 by Adelaide Langford, line the walls above the columns. The Montreal architecture firm Barott, Blackader and Webster was responsible for designing the main station building.

Interview with director Grigori Chukhrai and stars Vladimir Ivashov and Zhanna Prokhorenko, conducted after a preview screening in New York.

Ballad of a Soldier (Russian: Баллада о солдате, Ballada o soldate), is a 1959 Soviet film directed by Grigori Chukhrai and starring Vladimir Ivashov and Zhanna Prokhorenko.

Can we analyze the situation objectively and understand why the U.S.-Russia relations soured?

While writing my book on the Syrian war, I came across several disturbing videos. In one, Syrian rebels destroyed a church and riddled the Cross with bullets; in another terrifying video, an armed Syrian rebel asks someone if he was a Sunni or an Alawite (Shiite Muslim). When the victim says, “Alawite,” the rebel fires multiple rounds and kills the victim. Such psychopaths have three qualities: (1) Fanatic belief in their ideology (2) Inability to sympathize with other people’s point of view, and (3) Refusal to coexist with others who are different.

While we insist upon tolerance within America, our foreign policy is quite different. Americans are told they are the “greatest”, “#1” and “exceptional.” We are stuck in perpetual wars and we always have a bogeyman du jour.

To justify all the aggression, we are fed endless atrocity propaganda that incontrovertibly proves how evil another country and its leaders are. In this mythology, America is the innocent Little Red Riding Hood who’s threatened by wolves like Putin. He attacks our democracy! He threatens Europe! (There’s also new vitriol towards China and Iran).

The fact is that U.S. policies over the last 25 years have consistently pushed Russia away and fostered enmity between the two nations.

1990’s, Harvard boys and the Russian economy

1992 started with a new Russia that had just dissolved its communist system. Everything American was considered awesome. American TV shows, American products and … American economists … took over Russia. What better way to achieve prosperity?

The Harvard Boys were in charge of the Russian economy. Larry Summers, Jeffrey Sachs, Robert Rubin and others implemented their grand economic “reforms” with the help of handpicked Russian politicians and businessmen (future oligarchs).

To make the long story short, Russia experienced the Great Depression for the next eight years. Hyperinflation, 40% drop in GDP, mass unemployment, widespread poverty, soaring suicides … the reforms turned out to be a cruel shock therapy.

However, pro-West oligarchs such as Khodorkovsky, Berezovsky and Abramovich became instant billionaires. Americans like Bill Browder – the now famous anti-Putin warrior behind the Magnitsky Act – also enjoyed the spoils of the plunder.

U.S. meddling in Russian politics

While we are shocked by the Russian interference in our election, back in the 1990s, Washington elites literally picked the Russian President and the cabinet. As Bill Clinton bragged to Tony Blair, he also had tremendous influence over the Russian parliament. And when Boris Yeltsin was about to lose in the 1996 election, Bill Clinton arranged an IMF loan that went into Yeltsin’s campaign coffer; and U.S. campaign experts flew into Russia and engineered a resounding victory for Yeltsin. The U.S. media gloated about the meddling with titles, “Yanks to the Rescue!” and “Rescuing Boris.”

American Jihadists, part II

If the CIA and Saudi Arabia created Mujahideen/Al Qaeda in Afghanistan to defeat the USSR, they didn’t want to dismantle such a splendid organization. In 1992, those fighters were sent to Bosnia, Azerbaijan, Chechnya and Kosovo, which all had economic and geopolitical significance.

Azerbaijan on the Caspian Sea has vast reserves of oil and gas. And the only competition was the Russian pipelines that went through … Chechnya. Soon, a pro-US dictator took over Azerbaijan – he and his son have been ruling the country for the last 25 years (obviously, we won’t demand “democracy” there). In Chechnya, the Mujahideen blew up the Russian pipelines and then defeated the Russian army in the First Chechen War.

In Bosnia and Kosovo, Islamic terrorists engaged in ethnic cleansing and mass murder of Serbians. The CIA and US private military contractors (such as MPRI) played a major role in the chopping up of Yugoslavia. When separatists in Kosovo started losing, NATO stepped in and bombed Serbia into submission in 1999. The following year, Soros-funded group Otpor! (“Resistance”) overthrew the Serbian president. Why was Serbia so relentlessly targeted? It was pro-Russia.

I describe these events in details in my new book, “Geopolitics for Dummies.”

Color revolutions against Russia – Georgia, Ukraine

Many color revolutions followed the same playbook. When a pro-US leader lost an election, grassroots organizations funded by Soros/USAID/NED will start protesting. This will be called a “revolution,” with catchy names as Tulip, Orange, Rose, Umbrella etc. Following sophisticated propaganda and international pressure, there would be a new election and, voila, the pro-U.S. candidate would win. Rinse, Repeat.As for the oil/gas by the Caspian Sea, they could not reach Europe without going through Georgia. Hello, George Soros! Goodbye pro-Russia president! Within a few years, western conglomerates started reaping big profits from the BTC pipeline as shown below:

Next, Soros did his magic in Ukraine in 2004 and got rid of the pro-Russia president. Of course, in 2013, the U.S. staged another clever coup in Ukraine.

While we’re enraged by Russia spending $100,000 on Facebook ads, U.S. Asst. Sec. of State – Victoria Nuland – admitted that the U.S. spent $5 billion in Ukraine. She was also famous for handing out cookies at the faux Euromaidan revolution in Kiev in 2013.

In his 2015 annual report, George Soros bragged that he had spent $180 million in Ukraine.

NATO expansion

When the USSR was dismantled, U.S. elites had promised Russians that NATO would not expand. However, while the Russian military was being decimated, globalists kept expanding NATO. In 1999, NATO added Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic. In 2004, when Russia was still weak and friendly towards the U.S. … NATO added 7 more countries.

Many of these new NATO members have anti-missile defense systems, and U.S. soldiers participate in massive war games right on the Russian border.
 

Obviously, all these are terrifying security threats to Russia.ABMT

In 2001, George Bush and the Neocons unilaterally cancelled the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which had been in place since 1972. This was a needless provocation against Russia, which reduced its nuclear weapons from 45,000 to 7,000 and signed many treaties to promote peace.

NATO rejects Russia

In 2001, Putin offered to join NATO, but was turned down. If Russia joined NATO, how will the military-industrial complex justify its annual budget and expensive projects? No enemy, No money!

Trying to steal Crimea

In the 1850s, Great Britain and France tried to steal Crimea from the Russian Empire. Why? Without Crimea and control of Black Sea, Russia will be severely hampered. Geography hasn’t changed in 160 years and we shouldn’t be too Machiavellian. Crimea belongs to Russia, let’s move on.

Pipeline war continues

Poland and Ukraine were the most important transit countries for Russian pipelines. Now, thanks to the U.S., both countries are hostile towards Russia. So, when Putin tried to build pipelines that would reach Europe through Bulgaria, the US stopped it. When he tried to build pipelines through Greece, well, the U.S./EU blocked it again. As the last resort, Putin laid pipelines under the sea (NordStream), and the U.S. found 100 reasons to object and threatened to impose more sanctions against Russia.

It’s rather difficult to love someone who’s persistently trying to sabotage your economy.

Hybrid wars

Without an iota of diplomacy, the U.S. media and politicians constantly attack Putin, demonize him, and use derogatory language. On the other hand, Putin always talks about “our American partners.”

Japanese leader, Abe, has met with Putin 20 times, and nobody freaks out in Japan; India and China treat Putin with enormous affection and respect. Even geopolitical enemies Israel, Saudi Arabia and Iran often meet with Putin and negotiate like reasonable adults.

The U.S. spends too much time on hybrid and propaganda wars — placing sanctions on Russia, attacking its currency, expelling Russian diplomats, seizing Russian embassies, stopping Russian athletes from participating in Olympics, accusing Putin – without any public evidence – of poisoning people (especially right before the World Cup) and so on.

Conclusion

Going back to the beginning of the article, do we want to be like that jihadist? Or can we analyze the situation objectively and understand why the U.S.-Russia relations soured? Given the vast powers of the U.S., other countries don’t deliberately provoke us; ipso facto, if we have terrible relations with a country, it’s most likely a conflict of choice started by warmongering Washington elites. Russia, China, Iran and others want prosperity, respect and sovereignty. Whether the U.S. can accept this paradigm and recalibrate its foreign policy to reflect the emerging multipolar world or not will determine global peace and wars in the coming years.

Sometime in the mid-1990s, British Prime Minister John Major reportedly asked Russian President Boris Yeltsin to describe the Russian economy in one word. Yeltsin replied, “Good.” Seeking greater detail, Major asked Yeltsin if he could describe it in two words. Yeltsin replied, “Not good.”

While this old joke is probably a myth, the current state of the Russian economy matches that “not good” of lore, and its prospects of getting better any time soon look dubious — and this could lead to a serious geopolitical altercation.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia’s gross domestic product declined by 40 percent during the 1990s. Then, from 1999 to 2008, Russia’s GDP grew by roughly 7 percent per year, almost doubling in size in nine years. Floating on a sea of hydrocarbons, this was the high-water mark of the Russian economy.

At the end of the decade, during the global financial crisis, Russia’s economy contracted approximately 8 percent. In an attempt to preserve the ruble’s value as capital was fleeing the country, the Central Bank of Russia aggressively intervened. But in the process, it lost more than $200 billion of foreign-exchange reserves in a matter of months.

Although Russian economic growth slowed dramatically well before energy prices plunged and economic sanctions were imposed over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, lower energy prices have obviously taken their toll. Russia is a petro-state. Half of its budget revenues come directly from taxes on oil and gas, and approximately 70 percent of Russia’s export revenues come from hydrocarbons.

Over the past two years, energy revenues have shrunk from more than 7 trillion rubles in 2014 (about $200 billion at that year’s exchange rate) to an estimated 6 trillion rubles in 2016, or about $80 billion at the current exchange rate.

Western sanctions have crippled the ability of Russian financial institutions and companies to borrow money from abroad — not just from the United States, but from all over the world. Not even the Chinese are lending the Russians a renminbi. According to data from the Economist Intelligence Unit, the deprivation of capital has shrunk Russia’s gross fixed investment from $197 billion in 2012 to an estimated $126 billion in 2016.

Russia’s economy is suffering in other areas as well. In 2015, inflation reached 13 percent, with food inflation considerably higher. The ruble’s exchange rate is now roughly half of what it was just two years ago. The Russian stock market has fallen to just over one-quarter of its 2008 peak (denominated in dollars).

Capital has fled from the Kremlin. Since 2011, Russia has been losing 4-8 percent of GDP annually in capital outflows.

According to the World Bank, real incomes shrank 9.5 percent in 2015, and the number of those living below the poverty level was projected to grow in 2016 at its fastest rate since the 1998 crisis. The World Bank estimates that the number of people living in poverty in Russia will increase to more than 20 million this year, in a country with a population of 140 million. That’s the highest number in nine years.

So far, Russia has been able to rely on reserves built up over almost a decade of high oil prices to minimize the impact on its official budgets. But the Reserve Fund dropped to $44.9 billion this month — its lowest point in four years and down from about $90 billion two years ago.

Interestingly, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have praised Russia’s government and central bank for their handling of the economic crisis. Kudos were extended to Russia for avoiding a colossal deficit in its energy-dependent budget by allowing the ruble to depreciate by 60 percent against the dollar in 2015. In addition, federal spending (outside of defense outlays) was controlled.

While controversial, the Central Bank of Russia received good marks for moving to a floating exchange rate. In 2015 and early 2016, Russia’s Central Bank chose not to intervene in the currency market. As the price of oil fell, the CBR allowed the ruble to depreciate — it fell 40 percent against the dollar in 2015 — helping the economy regain international trade competitiveness.

On his first day in office in 2012 (the beginning of his third term), President Vladimir Putin promised wholesale privatization. Four years later, little if any of that has occurred. Similar promises were made in Putin’s first two terms. Yet the economic crisis hasn’t dented the president’s approval rating, which hovers around 80 percent.

This may be in large part because most Russians blame foreigners for their economic hardships. To hedge his odds, Putin recently created a new national guard, in the event of domestic conflict with the general public.

That may say more about the state of the economy than all the numbers combined. It’s “not good.”