Ivan Us, chief consultant at the Institute for Strategic Studies and PhD in Economics, said this on Espreso TV.“Once, in a Soviet film, the Ukrainian actor Leonid Bykov said the famous phrase: ‘Everything’s fine, I’m falling!’—these words describe the state of the Russian economy. The decline is already happening. At various forums in Russia’s financial and economic circles, they say they don’t know how they’ll close out this year. Russia’s Minister of Economic Development, Maksim Reshetnikov, says there will be a recession by the end of the year. The indicators of the Russian economy also point to a downturn,” the economist commented.According to him, previously the military sector propped Russia up, while the civilian sector was in the red and declined sharply. This is evidenced by one of the key indicators used in the global economy—a 25% drop in rail freight.“Problems in the Russian Federation are accumulating: one industry after another is reporting difficulties. Moreover, even the metallurgy sector, which in my view is second only to oil, namely metallurgical enterprises, are starting to say they will shut down because they cannot obtain the necessary funds to operate. I model that—even if the United States begins lifting sanctions—it will not have a rapid effect on the Russian economy, because many processes are already underway, and I am not sure this can save it. Of course, the Russian economy has a certain balance of resilience for this year, perhaps for the next, but hardly for a longer period,” Us concluded.Earlier, Illia Neshchodovskyi, head of the analytical direction of the ANTS network, said that amid falling oil prices, a growing budget deficit, and problems in the banking sector, Russia is rapidly approaching an economic crisis.