By Olesya Astakhova and Vladimir Soldatkin
MOSCOW (Reuters) -One of President Vladimir Putin’s top economic officials on Wednesday pushed back at U.S. President Donald Trump’s warning that the Russian economy was going to collapse amid lines for gasoline in some regions.
Trump on Tuesday said that Putin should settle the Ukraine war which the 47th U.S. president said was making Russia look bad. He also mentioned “long lines waiting for gasoline” and said the Russian “economy is going to collapse”.
Russia’s economy is slowing this year and the government forecasts gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 1.0% after 4.3% growth in 2024 and 4.1% growth in 2023, though the International Monetary Fund has downgraded its 2025 forecast to 0.6% from 0.9%.
Asked about Trump’s remarks at an energy conference in Moscow, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, who oversees energy and the economy for the government, said that Russia had a stable supply of gasoline.
“We have a stable domestic market supply, we see no problems in this regard,” Novak said.
“The balance is maintained between production and consumption, and we, on the part of the government and the relevant ministries, are doing everything to ensure that this remains the case.”
High interest rates deterred the biggest Russian retailers from buying up gasoline in the winter months when there was a surplus and then a series of Ukrainian drone attacks knocked out a chunk of Russian refinery capacity.
That led to some gasoline shortages in regions in the periphery of Russia, the world’s second largest oil exporter, though the government has moved swiftly to prioritise supplies to regions with shortages.
Russia has repeatedly said that the domestic market is stable, though not without some issues.
With Russia and Western-backed Ukraine locked into a draining drone and artillery war of attrition for a fourth year, the economy is becoming a major are of competition between the West and Russia.
Ukraine’s Western supporters say that Russia’s economy is weaker than it looks and that if the pressure is increased then the pain of ordinary Russians will force Putin to change course in Ukraine.
The Kremlin says that the economy is being slowed on purpose to stop overheating, has adapted well to the most Western onerous sanctions ever imposed on a major economy and that no external power can ever force Russia to change course.
(Reporting by Olesya Astakhova and Vladimir Soldatkin; Writing by Lucy Papachristou; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)
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