A cluster of reports today contain unfavorable assertions about the Russian economy.  Firstly, the BBC suggests here that there is a growing disparity between the Russian bear and fellow Bric members Brazil, China and India whose economies are modernizing with alacrity on the back of a demographic explosion, whilst in Russia a creaking infrastructure and dwindling population are kept afloat only by the flood of petrodollars.

News of Russia’s lackluster economic performance is seconded in the Moscow Times, which says that the Russia Competitiveness Report 2011 has placed the country 63rd out of 139 countries in terms of competitiveness.  Sberbank’s German Gref, who contributed to the report signaled ‘new drivers of growth are needed for Russia to achieve sustainable development’.  In other words, low educational standards, a natural resource-based economy, unstable financial markets and outmoded institutions all have Russia languishing behind its fellow Bricees.  But is is Yulia Latynina in a Moscow Times op-ed who conveys concerns about the economy most vociferously, in typically coruscating style.  It is not just petrodollars which are, to her mind, the problem, but how they are being siphoned off.  She argues: