Since invading Ukraine ten years ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin has alternated between serving as minister and as a general in the armed forces. Elvira Nabiullina, the governor of the central bank he cannot live without, has remained a constant throughout it all.
The nature of her relationship with Putin, and if it can last longer, could define the economy that results from the biggest war in Europe since World War II.
….India gains on its strong GDP prediction.
She stopped wearing brooches in public as soon as Russia’s full-scale invasion started in February 2022 and started dressing in black and white instead. It was the first act of what passes for dissent in wartime Russia by her, one that was succeeded by a quit attempt and a slow-motion breakup over multiple important measures supported by Putin and his administration.
Two years into her third term, Nabiullina has made space for nonconformism in a Russian system that prioritizes loyalty over all other considerations. Additionally, Nabiullina continues to be an oddity that Putin is eager to defend even as a reorganized cabinet led by some of her harshest detractors joins office.
Putin, according to Oleg Vyugin, a former senior Bank of Russia official who has known Nabiullina for more than 20 years, sees her as a straight talker free of corruption who has demonstrated successes over years interspersed with crises.
Vyugin declared, “Elvira has the sole right to inform the president of anything that he finds objectionable.” “He accepts it and she is free to discuss the situation honestly.”
Nabiullina, 60, has been leading one of the most autonomous institutions in contemporary Russia for the past ten years. She is just months away from holding the title of longest-serving governor of the organization and is still one of the few powerful women in Russia.
According to those acquainted with the situation, Putin values and respects Nabiullina’s advice and views her presence as a way to balance out the president’s economic team.
The leader of Russia is significantly more in line with the bellicose actions of other prominent technocrats who have influence over economic policy. The battle is now being framed as a “global conflict with the West over Ukraine,” according to Maxim Oreshkin, Putin’s former economic advisor who was recently moved to the position of deputy chief of staff at the Kremlin. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov speaks of shaping the budget for “the task of ensuring victory.”
Nabiullina, according to a senior government official colleague, is a staunch idealist who sticks to the rules even when the game’s outdated norms no longer apply.
Nabiullina has been warning for months about how the war’s labor shortages and record-high defense spending might affect the economy.
The central bank was also against further capital controls that would have forced exporters to exchange their international profits for rubles on the home market. People acquainted with the matter claim that Nabiullina alone did not approve a draft decree to reimpose the measures that Putin later approved and imposed over her objections late last year.
As the government attempted to take shares from minority shareholders of the rare earth metals company Solikamsk magnesium plant, the central bank filed an appeal in May against a precedent-setting court ruling authorizing the takeover.
Nabiullina appeared unaware of the conflict ripping apart lives as she justified the central bank’s intervention in the case in which it is not a party.
Protecting investor rights and legitimate share buyers through structured trading is the cornerstone of investor confidence in the financial system, the stock market, and trust in general, the speaker stated. “We are concerned in the most serious way.”
Following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, a joke among Russian officials circulated regarding the two major surprises Putin had in store for the war: his army was so ineffective that, despite extensive preparation, it was unable to deliver victory, and his technocrats were so astute that, without any forewarning, they managed to keep the economy from collapsing.
Interviews with government representatives and acquaintances of Nabiullina portray a person who, as the conflict rages on, develops a tunnel vision around the economy. However, as she revealed in the background subsequent to the conflict, averting an implosion at home also fulfilled another function.