The crash of the ruble — and what’s next for Russia

Since the Russian invasion of Crimea last February, many different phrases have been used to describe the tactics of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin. Some have spoken of a ‘new Cold War’. Others have described him as ‘anti-western’ or ‘anti-American’. But there is another adjective one could also use to describe his behaviour: ‘experimental’. For apart from everything else he has said and done, Putin has, in effect, launched a vast experiment into whether it is possible to extract a large and relatively well-integrated country from the global mainstream, and to reject the rules by which that mainstream runs.

In truth, the experiment began long before Crimea. For several years now, Russia, a member of the World Trade Organisation, has defied the spirit of that institution by using selective trade boycotts — Lithuanian cheese, Polish meat — to make political points. In 2008, the Russian army also invaded and then occupied parts of Georgia, more or less with impunity, which at least poked a hole in the ideal of ‘Europe whole and free’.