Russia’s government has sharply revised down its economic growth forecast for 2026. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak now says the economy is expected to grow just 0.4 percent — down from the 1.3 percent the Economic Development Ministry projected in September.

“We expect that in 2026 we will manage to maintain positive GDP growth of +0.4%,” Novak said in an interview with the Russian business daily Vedomosti. He also forecast that inflation would approach 5.2 percent by the end of 2026.

Next year is expected to mark the beginning of “a period of recovery in growth rates, from 1.4% in 2027 to 2.4% in 2029.” Inflation is projected to return to its 4 percent target starting in 2027, Novak said.

The Economic Development Ministry’s most recent forecast, published in September, projected GDP growth of 1.3 percent in 2026, 2.8 percent in 2027, and 2.5 percent in 2028.

In March, Economic Development Minister Maxim Reshetnikov said the next forecast would be released in April. “We assumed the first half of the year would be difficult. And so it has been. We will incorporate all current indicators into the new forecast, and work on it is underway,” he said at the time, according to the Russian state news agency TASS. As of the morning of May 12, no updated forecast from the ministry had appeared.

Sberbank lowered its forecast for Russian economic growth in 2026 to 0.5–1 percent from 1–1.5 percent of GDP, and raised its inflation forecast from 5–6 percent to 6–6.5 percent.

The International Monetary Fund raised its forecast for Russian GDP growth in 2026 by 0.3 percentage points in April, to 1.1 percent.