Senior Russian banker fired after warning over wartime economy

Andrei Klepach of VEB said Russia’s economy was falling behind China, US and ‘in some respects Ukraine’ The chief economist at Russia’s second-largest bank has been fired after a series of critical comments about the state of the economy, including warnings that Moscow would not win a prolonged economic war with Ukraine . Andrei Klepach, who had served in the role at the state-controlled development bank VEB since 2014, was fired days after Russian media reported on a scathing speech he had delivered to fellow economists in May. In the remarks, first reported by the Moscow Times, Klepach said Russia was “falling behind” China and the US economically, and “in some respects, Ukraine”. Klepach said pressures on Russia’s economy due to the war would inevitably lead to a “social crisis” that would erupt “when no one particularly expects it”. It hasn’t collapsed, and it won’t.

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