As a result of the war in Georgia, declines in the price of oil and the flight of capital from developing countries as a result of the worldwide financial panic, the Russian stock exchange index fell by 47.8 percent in the third quarter, far more than any other equities market in the world (grani.ru/Politics/Russia/Cabinet/m.142167.html).
… and many economists say Moscow has only itself to blame.
Andrei Illarionov, former Kremlin advisor and president of the Moscow Institute of Economic Analysis, says that the Russian authorities are to blame for most of the decline because of the way in which they have managed the Russian economy over the last ten years (
www.barentsobserver.com/russia.... Other economists have echoed his view, arguing that "the consequences of the [current] crisis can be increased as a result of defects in the country's economic and financial policies" (
www.ng.ru/economics/2008-10-03....
(Window on Eurasia shorts, October 4, 2008)