Russia has ability to tide over oil crisis

The sluggish global petroleum market can be blamed on economic fundamentals. The sluggish trend, fuelled in no small measure by Western countries for their own gains, is likely to continue in the next decade. Petroleum and natural gas industries play a significant role in Russia's economy, which means the decline in petroleum prices will have a huge impact on Russia's fiscal revenue and currency exchange rate. If we travel back to the 1980s, we'll see that the sharp drop in petroleum prices hit the Soviet Union economy hard.

However, the Russian economy will not collapse, as some Western powers expect, because of the bearish petroleum market.

Compared with other emerging market economies which have also depended heavily on primary product industries over the past more than one decade, Russia is more capable of overcoming the crisis. Although Russia doesn't have as strong and highly efficient a state system as the Soviet Union, the core leadership of Russia is expected to be steady and stable in the next five to 10 years.