Indeed, the fact that Russia has continued to grow at all while its major foreign trading partner, the European Union, has been wracked by a crippling debt crisis is a surprise on the upside.
The point is that, based on its past experience, Russia should have seen continued modest improvement in the early months of 2013 but that sundry forms of mortality that were usually of limited importance increased sharply.
The Russia-Georgia conflict, which started in South Ossetia last week, continued Sunday, though Georgia began withdrawing its forces from Tskhinvali early that morning.