Russia’s economy is tanking. But will it make Putin change course?

Deep into the worst conflict between Russia and the West since the Cold War, investors are fleeing, food prices are soaring and there are rumbles from Russia’s Westernized business elite that the nation needs to avoid repeating the economic mismanagement that broke apart the Soviet Union.
Western sanctions have choked off financing to some of Russia’s economic juggernauts and denied crucial technology to the nation’s energy sector. But there is little evidence that the mounting economic pressures since the March annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula will soften Putin’s policies toward Ukraine and other nations in the former Soviet orbit. Putin still enjoys sky-high approval ratings, and ordinary Russians say they are ready to make sacrifices in a battle with the West.
Because of economic warfare with Europe, meat and vegetable prices have risen dramatically. Travel abroad has dropped so swiftly that dozens of tour operators were bankrupted this summer, leaving some tourists stranded in Turkey and Egypt. Portions of Russian savers’ pension funds have been appropriated by the state to prop up the country's companies.

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