Putin Summarizes Russia's Economic Performance

In his year-end press conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin summarized the condition of the Russian economy at the end of 2025. While the year-on-year growth was only 1%, he noted that the growth of the last three years was 9.7%. He contrasted that to EU growth during that same time period, which was 3.1%. The figure for this year was also attributed to a tight monetary policy purportedly designed to keep inflation under control, controls which Bank of Russia central bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina has imposed and which she promised on Dec. 19 will soon be relaxed. Putin predicted that inflation will be below 6% by the end of the year, which was the goal of the restrictive policies.