Russia's economy is recovering, slowly but surely. After nearly three years of recession caused by low oil prices, dwindling foreign investment and sanctions, the country's fortunes improved in the first half of this year. The Russian government upgraded its forecast for gross domestic product growth to 2 percent based on current oil prices, just over half a percent higher than the International Monetary Fund's projection for the country. And since the Kremlin drafted its federal budget assuming prices for Russian crude exports would be $40 per barrel — about $13 lower than the average price this year — the government now has a surplus on its hands. But that doesn't mean the country's economic troubles are behind it. Relative to its last convalescence after the 2009 recession, which was deeper, the Russian economy's current recovery is far less robust, in large part because of lackluster oil prices.