Summary:

Pressure builds. The early June temperature in Moscow was hot and the RTS Index finally recovered all of the loss incurred since mid-2014. That’s the good news. The list of bad, or worrying, news items is considerably longer. This time last year the government kicked off twelve months of public discontent with the pension age reforms but promised all would be better by mid-2019. It is not. The question now is whether the economy can be revived, and start to calm public concerns, or whether people are finally losing patience? If the former, then all will be well. If the latter, then we can expect more pressure on government and on its economic policies.