According to Gimpelson, interviewed by The Bell’s Denis Kasyanchuk:

• “The departure of foreign companies hasn’t immediately affected employment. Many companies left, but for a while they continued to support their workers, paying out some money. Employment has been supported, so it won’t collapse immediately. And then, when people lose their jobs, it doesn’t mean that they immediately become unemployed. They gradually adapt. … Plus, there is such a thing as unemployment benefits.”
• Asked how employees and their productivity will be affected by firms’ restructuring their operations due to a lack of Western components and blocked access to some software: “Negatively. Russian companies will try to somehow replace what they no longer have. … It’ll be technologically worse, more primitive, lower quality. But this will keep the cart creaking along the long path down.”
• Asked which sectors of the economy will be most impacted by the current crisis: “The automotive industry has already suffered the most—it’s gone. Passenger airlines have also suffered—several terminals at Sheremetyevo are closed, Domodedovo and Vnukovo are operating but at low capacity. Retail has likely also suffered greatly. … On the other hand, replacements can always be found, and in this respect the Russian economy is rather agile.”
• “The pandemic was initially seen as a very short crisis … [whereas] the current crisis means the severing of many economic ties. It looks more like the 1992 crisis after the collapse of the USSR, when the ties between firms located in different regions of the country and in different former Soviet republics actually ceased to exist. This is what’s happening now, only it’s not ties within the country but between countries being broken. This crisis will be longer than the pandemic crisis.”
• “I think it’s going to be a very long story. Links have been severed that can’t be restored quickly. Therefore, it doesn’t depend on whether the hostilities end tomorrow, in three months or six months. I think everything will move in the same direction no matter what. Everything’s already in place.”

Read the full article on Russia.Post.

This item is part of Russia Matters’ “Clues from Russian Views” series, in which we share what newsmakers in/from Russia are saying on Russia-related issues that impact key U.S. national interests so that RM readers can glean clues about their thinking.

The opinions expressed herein are solely those of the interviewee. Illustration shared by Ghosts of Baltimore via the Burlington Historical Society.