Analysts predict second wave of crisis in Russia
Interfax
Moscow, 16 September: Political analysts and economists believe that a second wave of the crisis is possible in Russia and that it will lead to negative consequences for the country's position in the world arena.
"I believe a second wave of the crisis is possible. Stagnation may again be followed by a fall, and even if there is no fall, the stagnation will be long," well-known economist and political scientist Aleksandr Auzan said at a seminar in Moscow.
He believes this would be unlikely to lead to the country's collapse, but that it would have a considerable impact on its weight and authority in the world arena. "I do not see the country disintegrating in future, but an Argentinian scenario is possible - Russia turning from a first-rank power into a third-rank one within several decades," he said.
Another participant in the seminar, representative of the Levada Centre Aleksey Levinson also came up with a pessimistic political forecast for the decade ahead.
"Isolationist measures, as well as a 'crackdown', repression, combating external and internal enemies and so on will find active support among both young and elderly people. Measures to nationalize and expropriate large property will be welcomed," Levinson said.
He stressed the danger of the still deepening demographic crisis. "The sudden sense that we are a 'endangered nation', common for many ethnicities, awaits us," he said.
"One cannot rule out that the demographic crisis and fear of losing control over territories that are too large and borders that are too long, which there is no desire to use political means to defend, will cause another dash on the part of the military to use this pretext to place all society's human resources under their control," he said.
Levinson pointed out the danger of the anti-Western rhetoric which is popular these days. "Anti-Western rhetoric, which seems such a convenient tool of integration in society, has its own logic and leads to anti-Western gestures and deeds in politics and economic development. Projecting this line into the future decade promises that Russia will gradually lose its place in the division of labour and function in areas of the world economy and international relations where the 'Western origin' dominates," Levinson said.
In response to such behaviour by Russia, which will have less and less to offer to the West apart from raw materials and weapons for the West's enemies, the West "will try to push a disagreeable participant like Russia to the periphery", he said.
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