The cheer-leaders for Russia.....

[HL]

...must be eating humble pies at this time..........

Yes, the drastic fall in the Russian economy is from the decrease in oil prices.

BUT: score one for president Obama. The president embargo(s) must also be credited for Putin's 'tail-between-his-legs'.http://english.pravda.ru/russia/econ...ssian_ruble-0/

[Jangle]

Putin??? Mr. Machismo??? The man's man who's got the ladies like Sarah Palin all wet and bothered???

http://news.yahoo.com/russian-ruble-...071159336.html
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian consumers flocked to the stores Wednesday, frantically buying a range of big-ticket items to pre-empt the price rises kicked off by the staggering fall in the value of the ruble in recent days.

http://news.yahoo.com/rouble-crisis-...-business.html
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia failed to halt the collapse of the ruble on Tuesday, leaving President Vladimir Putin facing a full-blown currency crisis that could weaken his iron grip on power.
A 6.5 percentage point interest rate rise to 17 percent overnight failed to prevent the currency hitting record lows in a "perfect storm" of low oil prices, looming recession and Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis.


Reuters Russia is experiencing another major brain drain.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/russia...FU5gMAF1XQtDMD
Although emigration trended downward from 1997 to 2011, there was a sudden spike in people leaving the country around the third term of President Vladimir Putin, according to Rosstat, Russia's federal state statistics service.
In 2012, almost 123,000 people left, and in 2013, more than 186,000 got out.