Former CIA chief says Russia’s economy could collapse and Moscow scared of even opening stock exchange

‘They are in the precipice of a very very dire situation’

A former US army commander and chief of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has warned that Russia’s economy could soon collapse amid tough economic sanctions imposed on the country.

David Petraeus, who was speaking with Fox News on Wednesday, cited sanctions imposed by the United States, UK and the European Union following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last week and warned that its economy could “completely plummet” as a result.

Mr Petraeus argued: “I do think that some of the economic measures that have taken are so draconian that it literally could be a race between how quickly the economy just collapses in certain respects”.

It includes the exclusion of Russian banks from Swift – the messaging system that underpins many global financial transactions – and bans on US and EU trade with Russia.

Russia’s central bank has meanwhile been blocked from accessing its reserves of foreign currency, which in normal times would be used by Moscow to stabilise the rouble, which fell to a record low on Monday.

Those economic measures, which have come alongside the arming of Ukraine in its fight against Russia, have also been supported by private companies reacting to Russia’s invasion with measures of their own – and which will further hurt the country’s economy.

“You know the fact that the (Russian) central bank’s reserve, of which they are very proud, they’re foreign reserves and they’re in foreign banks and they’re now all frozen,” Mr Petraeus said on Wednesday.

“They can’t even open their stock exchange for fear that it will completely plummet. They are on the precipice of a very, very dire situation in their financial and economic markets,” the former CIA chief added.

Reports suggest many Russians who are able to afford travel to EU counties have begun to do so, while the chief executive of Schroders Peter Harrison told Reuters on Wednesday that Russian stocks and bonds are now “in the realms of utterly uninvestable”.

A ban on air and marine traffic will also likely see supply shortages within the country in the coming days or weeks, according to analysts. Well-known brands such as Ikea, Volkswagen and Nike have already announced the closure of Russian operations, while Apple, Meta (formerly known as Facebook) and Google have also disabled their services in Russia.

The action taken by the American tech companies has already caused scenes of confusion on Moscow’s metro as Google and Apple Pay services stopped working. Russians are however likely to encounter further economic trouble.

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