At the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, a Russian MP came to me.

“Are you going to bomb Iran?” He asked.

“I’m not planning to bomb anyone!” I answered.

“I mean you, English …”

“Do you mean Donald Trump?”

“He told what to do by Britain,” the man smiled. “And by deep state.”

It was a brief, bizarre conversation. But it was shown that this week in St. Petersburg was more on people’s minds than the economy.

Take President Vladimir Putin.

On Friday, the Kremlin leader gave the main speech in the forum’s plane season. This focused on the economy.

But this is what the Kremlin leader said in the panel discussion that later made headlines.

“We have an old rule,” Putin announced. “Where the foot step of a Russian soldier is ours.”

Imagine that you are the leader of a country who is hosting an economic platform, demanding foreign investment and cooperation. Claiming about your army seizing foreign land will not be the most effective way to achieve this.

but it’s. Since the full -scale invasion of Russia on Ukraine in February 2022, the economy situation has been secondary to the goal of winning the war against Ukraine. This is Kremlin’s overroach priority. True, Russia’s economy is growing, but due to large-scale expenditure on defense sector and military complexes.

And even this war related development is now out.

Putin did not worry much.

The Russian President announced, “As far as the ‘killing’ of the Russian economy is concerned, as a famous writer once said – ‘Rumors of my death are very exaggerated,” the Russian President announced.

But the Russian government is clearly nervous.

On the stage, Russia’s Economic Development Minister, Maxim Recenikov, warned that the country’s economy was “on the verge of recession”.

“We grew at a much higher speed for two years because unused resources were active,” said Russian Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabilina. “We need to understand that many of those resources are actually finished.”

The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum was conceived as a bright performance for the Russian economy. Thousands of international sanctions imposed on Russia on war in Ukraine have faded a lot of that brightness. Many Western companies pulled out of Russia.

Can they return?

Eventually, US President Donald Trump has made it clear that he wants a better relationship with Moscow.

“Today we have breakfast with the American Chamber of Commerce and a lot of investors came from America. We understand that many American companies want to come back,” told me on foreign investment. We spoke on the banks of the St. Petersburg Forum.

“I think the US administration understands that dialogue and joint cooperation is better than restrictions that do not work and do not hurt your businesses.”

Western business, however, is unlikely to return in large numbers, while Russia is fighting on Ukraine.

Robert Age, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, said, “I think it is clear that you will have to end the struggle before American companies return seriously.”

“Have you asked the Trump administration to lift some restrictions from Russia?” I asked him.

“We have gone to Washington,” he replied. “We have analyzed the impact of American restrictions on American businesses. We have passed the administration.”

“Do you accept that the idea of ​​returning Western businesses is controversial in the light of war in Ukraine?” I asked

“Western businesses decided on the basis of what happened three or four years ago,” Mr. Edge replied. “And it is up to them to decide if this is the right time to return.”

After more than three years of war and mass restrictions, Russia faces difficult economic challenges: high inflation, high interest rate, stagnation report, recession. Problems in the economy are now openly discussed and debated.

It is not clear how soon they will be solved.