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Akbar Novruz

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed that Russia's economy outpaced global growth over the past three years, but official international data indicates that the global economy expanded slightly faster over the same period.

Speaking at the BRICS summit in New Delhi on September 11, Putin said Russia's gross domestic product had grown by 10.3% between 2023 and 2025.

Putin attributed the performance to structural changes in the Russian economy, arguing that the country had strengthened its resilience despite facing more than 30,000 international sanctions.

Addressing leaders including Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Putin also criticised Western economies, citing rising sovereign debt, widening budget deficits and what he described as an 8% decline in European Union industrial production.

However, figures from the International Monetary Fund and Eurostat paint a different picture.

IMF data shows that the global economy grew by 10.7% between 2023 and 2025, slightly exceeding Russia's reported 10.3% expansion.

Russia did outperform the global economy in 2023 and 2024, when wartime government spending provided a major boost to economic activity. But growth slowed sharply in 2025, falling to around 1%, while the global economy expanded by 3.5%.

Eurostat data also challenges Putin's assessment of European industrial production. EU industrial output declined in 2023 and 2024 before recovering in 2025, resulting in a net decline of about 0.6% over the three-year period, rather than the 8% contraction cited by the Russian president.

Russia's own economic forecasts suggest the gap with the global economy could widen further.

The Russian Ministry of Economic Development expects GDP growth of just 0.4% in 2026, compared with an IMF forecast of 3% for global growth.

The Russian forecast also puts growth at 1.4% in 2027, 1.9% in 2028 and 2.4% in 2029. Even combined, those figures point to only modest expansion over the coming years.

The slowdown is already visible in recent economic indicators. Russia's economy grew by 1.3% year on year in the second quarter of 2026, while first-half growth was just 0.6%, according to the figures cited in the report.

That represents a significant slowdown from the pace recorded during the wartime expansion of 2023 and 2024.

Fiscal pressures are also increasing. Putin acknowledged on September 3 that Russia's federal budget deficit was widening, with the January-July shortfall reaching 2.8% of GDP, compared with the government's full-year target of 1.6%.

Putin has argued that sanctions have strengthened Russia's economic sovereignty and encouraged Moscow to deepen trade with non-Western partners.

But the country's wartime economy continues to face significant constraints, including labour shortages, persistent inflation, high interest rates and growing fiscal pressures.

Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure have added to those difficulties. Repeated attacks on refineries during 2026 have disrupted domestic fuel processing and contributed to Moscow imposing restrictions on fuel exports.

The disruptions have also affected aviation, with restrictions on refuelling reportedly introduced at major Russian airports.

While the Kremlin continues to present Russia as an economically resilient model for the Global South, slowing growth, rising fiscal pressures and supply constraints are increasingly challenging that narrative.