For the second week in Russia there is a football fiesta. But the noisy celebrations could not completely hide the growing discontent caused by the tightening of economic and social policies. The government has obviously decided that the World Cup is an excellent window of opportunity to conduct unpopular measures to reduce social benefits: they are necessary because of a reduction in government revenues. The joyous atmosphere shows a huge change in that traditionally depressing Russia as a "besieged fortress", so street protesters can even feel their irrelevance. Although this dose of joy is really capable of causing Russian society the desire to emerge from a stable stagnation: up to 57% of Russians say that they want to see profound changes in state policy. Vladimir Putin has just started a new presidential term: it means that another six years will be somewhere "the same". So such a shift in the public mood is clearly contrary to the course that he has planned, writes political scientist, professor of the Institute for Peace Studies (Oslo) Pavel Baev.

The most shocking measure recently adopted by the government is the increase in the retirement age: from 60 to 65 for men, from 55 to 63 for women. It is aimed at resolving the crisis of the pension system without fueling inflation. However, all the propaganda efforts aimed at supporting the reduction of social payments did not convince the working class that their interests were properly taken into account. Indeed, such a decision is a striking departure from the economic populism that dominated Putin's presidential campaign. The Kremlin leader continues his attempts to distance himself from this "reform" and, quite possibly, will consider some changes and deferments - sufficient to restore his popularity. However, he will not be able to reduce pension benefits to state officials and power agents; and the State Duma deputies will not free themselves from the new rules. Moreover, these privileged groups of elites are unlikely to suffer from an increase in a number of taxes that the government is also slowly implementing - expecting that protests will only concern the problem of retirement age.

Speculators justify their gross mismanagement and the decline in effectiveness through the influence of Western sanctions. However, the pressure on social security can not solve the problem of income deficit in the state budget; so the government plans to increase taxes on the oil industry - in particular, on export earnings. Several influential lobbyists, including Igor Sechin, owner of the state Rosneft and one of Putin's most trusted persons, resist such redistribution of income and protect the interests of the hidden beneficiaries of the oil business. Corruption and theft continue to flourish in the energy sector, but speculators justify their gross mismanagement and the decline in effectiveness through the influence of Western sanctions. The result of the reluctance to invest in modernizing your own business is the increase in the prices of gasoline at gas stations: another social stimulus.

The most important question, which concerns both the revenues of the oil industry and the state budget of Russia, is the fluctuation in world oil prices. Putin used the occasion of opening of the World Cup to hold the match football and oil diplomacy with the Saudi Crown Prince Salman ibn Muhammad. Their initiative to increase production quotas to 1.5 million barrels a day was hostile to Iran, which can not increase its production due to the constant impact of sanctions, exacerbated by the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal. A compromise was reached at the meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) with Russia (known as the OPEC + format) in Vienna. But the guarantees that the price of oil will still rise - no.

Lowering the impact on the price of oil may have an imminent trade war between the US and China, in which Russia is an insignificant variable, but potentially the largest victim. Moscow is trying to demonstrate its willingness to participate in this conflict by imposing taxes on imports from the United States in response to US tariffs on aluminum. But the weight of these actions have almost no. Meanwhile, China stands the economic threat of the United States. And Russia, subject to the sanctions regime, is not an ally, which has at least some value for China in this confrontation. In the end, Moscow's decision to buy half of its portfolio of US treasury assets (amounting to $ 48.7 billion) did not impress the world's financial markets. Rather, in Russia, the outflow of foreign investment continued, which for the last 8 weeks reached $ 1.8 billion.

The Russian economy is starving because of a lack of investment, so this outflow of capital has a significant impact on Russia's prospects of achieving meaningful growth, which the government can show unless, by manipulating statistics. In fact, Russia is lagging behind in comparison with the rest of the world: Putin's talks on innovation and the digital economy are even less convincing than the proposals for the modernization of Dmitry Medvedev (the current prime minister) during his presidency in 2008-2012. The falsity of what Putin says also confirms the order to close the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences: one of the best universities in the country for the development of the economy of innovation. Russian ruling elites continue to hope for a "structural oil deficit", which Sechin confidently predicts, despite the fact that all the changes in world energy markets indicate that such a shortage of oil is highly unlikely.

The increase in oil revenues for today is perhaps the best foreign economic circumstance that Russia can hope for; but it only keeps the economy on an unsatisfactory path of stagnation. The sources of growth in a country rich in natural and human resources are many; However, the theft of bureaucrats, as well as systemic corruption in Russia, drain them.

The Kremlin is trying to ignore the signs of growing discontent, believing in the stability of the decline - therefore it is overreacting to the protests caused by this discontent. A technically sound economic policy of cutting costs - because the incomes are stolen - only speeds up the protest activity, forcing Putin to rely again on his police state to suppress it. A joyous football party can turn into a disgusting event in just a few weeks.

Translation of HB.