NEWSLINK Los Angeles Times: Russian middle class watches relative prosperity fade away

Like many Russians who climbed into an emerging middle class in recent years, Miller is watching his relative prosperity vanish. The plummet in global oil prices since last summer and Western sanctions imposed on Russia over its seizure of Ukrainian territory last year have cut deeply into the national budget, which depends on hydrocarbon exports for more than half of its revenue.

http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-russia-vanishing-prosperity-20150405-story.html