what are we supposed to be comparing? that page just showed overall numbers not start and end levels. find another world leader who presided over a 500% increase in his nation's wealth in 15 years then we'll talk.
Of course .... if you start from 0 ... let's see the progress in the next 5 years !
Poutine claimed => There is no Crisis in Russia ! Really ?
Moscow (AFP) - Russia's second largest bank VTB said Tuesday it made a loss of 18.3 billion rubles ($371.8 million) in the first quarter, blaming a hike in interest rates and the economic slowdown.
The majority state-owned bank which has been targeted by European Union and United States sanctions had seen its profits almost halved in 2014.
Andrei Kostin, the bank's president, said results reflect the "significant challenges" that the Russian economy has faced.
"The sharp rise in interest rates had a detrimental effect on our margins, and the general economic slowdown led us to continue building significant provisions against our credit exposures."
In December, Russia's central bank hiked the interest rate by a massive 6.5 percentage points to 17 percent. It has since cut the rate twice to 12.5 percent.
In the fourth quarter of 2014, the bank lost 4.6 billion rubles.
The bank received 100 billion rubles in December from Russia's national welfare fund as part of a plan to recapitalise the banking system hit by the falling ruble and Western sanctions.
The national welfare fund is a mammoth pile of money accumulated over the years of high oil prices, when Russia made billions of dollars through its energy exports.
If you remove energy export ... mostly geared by corruption in the country ... Russia will be back to stone age ...
Seems you like numerical value, do we need to recall you why URSS falled ? Hoo yes ... all money in weapons / Space and ?
Since the USSR's collapse, Russia faced many problems that free market proponents in 1992 did not expect. Among other things, 25% of the population lived below the poverty line, life expectancy had fallen, birthrates were low, and the GDP was halved. These problems led to a series of crises in the 1990s, which nearly led to the election of Yeltsin's Communist challenger, Gennady Zyuganov, in the 1996 presidential election. In recent years, the economy of Russia has begun to improve greatly, due to major investments and business development and also due to high prices of natural resources.
So you like Russia , ok this is your right ... no one will force you to like or not ... this is what we call "Democratic" way of thinking.
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