The Russian economy is projected to decline by 4.5 percent this year, a senior official has said. The drop will be “more than 4 percent and it will be even 4.5 percent,” Aleksei Kudrin, head of the country’s Accounts Chamber, was quoted by Sputnik as saying at a forum on Saturday. Noting that the country will have roughly 1 million more poor people, Kudrin said that “we will need to focus more on those people who need support.”