Russian real GDP growth has been low from 2013 forward, but it isn't so dire as Braun suggests. The IMF is predicting 1.1% real GDP growth in 2017 and 1.3% in 2018. The latter is the same as was achieved in 2013, and just about the same as what we got in 2016 under Justin Trudeau.  That said, except for 2009 when there was a big contraction, real GDP growth was in the 4.3% to 10.0% every year Putin-Medvedev were in power from 2000 to 2014, so these low or negative growth rates are terra incognita for Russia in the Putin era, and it is hard to say how the Russian citizenry will react. Putin's reaction to the Beslan massacre was disgusting: removing the right of the people to elect their own governors. I hope Braun is wrong about Putin using this new outrage as an excuse to clamp down on the remaining Russian freedoms, but he may well be right.