📋Overview

Russia is a natural resource-rich Eurasian economy and one of the world's largest by purchasing-power-parity measure. Its real GDP reached $6.089 trillion (PPP, 2021 dollars) in 2024, growing 4.3% that year, while the official exchange-rate GDP stood at $2.174 trillion in 2024 and is estimated at $2.561 trillion for 2025. GDP per capita on a PPP basis was $41,700 in 2024, though nominal per-capita income was only $17,547 in 2025, reflecting the ruble's weakness. The economy is structured around hydrocarbons and extractive industries (industry: 30.7% of GDP; services: 57.5%; agriculture: 2.7% in 2024). Despite sanctions imposed after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, headline growth rebounded sharply in 2023–2024, driven largely by elevated defense spending and energy revenues redirected toward China and India. Persistent structural weaknesses include endemic corruption, an underdeveloped green-energy infrastructure, a heavily sanctioned financial sector, and growing dependence on a single trading partner (China now accounts for 53% of imports and 33% of exports). Unemployment is exceptionally low at 2.6% (2024), partly reflecting wartime labour-market distortions. Public debt is modest at 18.5% of GDP (2023), and foreign-exchange and gold reserves were $597.2 billion at end-2023. Inflation, however, climbed to an estimated 8.7% in 2025, up from sub-5% pre-war levels.

📈Economy

Russia's economy is anchored in the extraction and export of fossil fuels and raw materials. Oil, refined products, natural gas, coal, and fertilisers together constitute the top five export commodities (2023). The hydrocarbon sector funds the federal budget (revenues: $704.6 billion in 2023) and underwrites a current-account surplus of $62.3 billion (2024). Household consumption accounts for 49.4% of GDP and government consumption 18.6% (2024), with the latter elevated by defence outlays since 2022. The industrial base is broad—spanning machine-building, aerospace, defence electronics, chemicals, metals, and shipbuilding—but civilian manufacturing competitiveness has eroded due to sanctions and limited foreign investment. Agriculture (wheat, sugar beet, barley, sunflower seeds, maize, soybeans) is export-relevant but contributes only 2.7% of GDP. A labour force of 72.5 million supports one of the lowest unemployment rates in the G20 (2.6% in 2024). The Gini coefficient of 35.1 (2021) indicates moderate inequality by international standards, though 12.1% of the population lived below the national poverty line in 2020.

📤Exports

📥Imports

💪Strengths

🔗Dependencies

⚖Trade impact

Russia is one of the world's pivotal commodity exporters, and its trade flows have outsized consequences for global energy, food, and fertiliser markets. As Europe's historically dominant gas supplier, Russia's redirection of pipeline flows following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine forced the EU to scramble for LNG alternatives, driving European energy prices sharply higher in 2022 and restructuring long-term European energy infrastructure plans. Exports peaked at $640.9 billion in 2022 before declining to $465.2 billion in 2023 as sanctions redirected rather than eliminated flows. China now absorbs a third of Russian exports — mainly crude oil at discounted prices — providing Beijing with cheaper energy inputs that bolster Chinese manufacturing competitiveness. India, at 17% of Russian exports, similarly receives discounted crude that it partly refines and re-exports as products, reshaping Asian refining margins. Turkey (8% of exports) acts as a key transit and re-export hub. On the import side, China supplies 53% of Russia's goods, deepening Sino-Russian economic interdependence and giving Chinese manufacturers privileged access to a large market largely vacated by Western firms. Russia's coal exports (211.9 million tonnes in 2023) shape seaborne coal pricing in Asia, while its fertiliser exports — enabled by cheap domestic gas — influence global agricultural input costs and food production economics, particularly in developing nations. The country's nuclear-energy arm extends its influence further, with Rosatom building reactors across multiple countries. Altogether, Russia functions as an indispensable raw-material node whose geopolitical decisions directly transmit into global commodity prices, European energy security calculus, and the trade patterns of major Asian economies.

🏢Top contributors to GDP

• RosneftOil & Gas (State-controlled)Russia's largest oil producer and a primary driver of crude-petroleum export revenues, which are the country's single biggest hard-currency earner
• GazpromNatural Gas & Energy (State-owned)Holds the world's largest natural-gas reserves and operates the pipeline infrastructure that exports 124.5 bcm annually; central to both federal budget revenues and Russia's geopolitical energy leverage
• LukoilOil & Gas (Private)Russia's largest privately-owned oil company by production, contributing significantly to petroleum export volumes and federal tax receipts
• NovatekNatural Gas & LNGRussia's leading independent gas producer and operator of Arctic LNG projects that diversify gas exports beyond pipelines toward Asian and global LNG markets
• Nornickel (Norilsk Nickel)Mining & MetalsWorld's largest producer of nickel and palladium, commodities critical to global battery and automotive supply chains, making it a significant source of export revenue beyond hydrocarbons
• SberbankBanking & Financial Services (State-controlled)Russia's dominant retail and corporate bank, central to domestic credit provision and household consumption which represents 49.4% of GDP
• RosatomNuclear Energy (State-owned)Operates Russia's 36 nuclear reactors (26.8 GW) generating 18.4% of domestic electricity and exports reactor technology internationally, extending Russia's strategic economic influence
• Severstal / NLMK / MMKSteel & MetalsRussia's major integrated steel producers supply domestic industrial and construction demand and export steel products, underpinning the industrial sector's 30.7% share of GDP
• PhosAgroFertilisers & ChemicalsOne of the world's largest phosphate-fertiliser producers, leveraging cheap domestic gas and mineral inputs to make fertilisers a top-five Russian export commodity (2023)
• Russian Railways (RZD)Transport & Infrastructure (State-owned)The backbone of Russia's freight logistics, essential for moving coal, metals, and grain from interior production centres to export terminals, enabling the commodity-export model