Russia fires top bank economist who criticized war of attrition
Photo: Andrei Klepach (Russian media)
On Sunday, August 16, Andrei Klepach, the chief economist of the state corporation VEB.RF, was dismissed in Russia. This followed Russian media drawing attention to his speech in May, according to the Russian edition The Bell.
According to one of the sources, VEB head Igor Shuvalov dismissed Klepach following an order from above. A second source confirmed that the dismissal was indeed linked to the May speech.
The Bell writes that in his report at an event organized by the Nikitsky Club of the Moscow Exchange, Klepach stated that Russia would not withstand the competition in a prolonged conflict with the West and also predicted a social crisis in the country.
"No matter what we do with our economy, it will survive. In that sense, there is no critical economic tipping point... The problem is rather that we are falling behind. We are losing both the technological and economic competition in the world. And we are losing not only to China and the US—in some respects, we are losing to Ukraine... We will not win the competition in this war of attrition. We have the illusion that everything will collapse there. It hasn't collapsed, and it won't," The Bell quoted the economist as saying.
Andrei Klepach had served as VEB's chief economist for 12 years. Before that, he spent 10 years at the Ministry of Economic Development, where he became head of the macroeconomic forecasting department in 2004 and served as deputy minister from 2008 to 2014.
Following his move to VEB, Klepach also held the position of deputy chairman of the corporation. In 2019, he stepped down from the board but remained chief economist.
VEB.RF is a state development corporation, led since 2018 by former First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov.
Other dismissals
In September 2025, Colonel General Alexander Lapin, notorious for his battlefield failures, was dismissed from the Russian army.
Since the start of the full-scale war, he had commanded the Center troop grouping, which advanced to the outskirts of Kyiv and, following its defeat, was redeployed eastward.
