You're starting at a local max as a baseline and then comparing after what happened from the sanctions of 2014 (after Crimea) paired with very low oil prices followed by the coronapocalypse when their economy was starting to kick back into gear.
This [1] page shows the yearly drops more clearly. But I think most importantly is that as the US (and increasingly everywhere in the world) emphasizes, GDP/capita often is a poor measurement of how the people themselves are doing. Here [2] is a graph of the change in real wages [2]. That is better than most places in the EU and is continuing upward in spite of ever more sanctions.
The big question is what impact the current wave of sanctions will have. And how that will jive with what may be persistently very high oil prices.
False comparison. Russia’s real GDP per capita has fallen 30% in the last decade [1]. This is true in no EU member.
> what happens if a democracy cannot provide for sustained economic growth?
It typically fails. Particularly if every one of its neighbors is meanwhile delivering quality of life gains.
[1] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/RUS/russia/gdp-gross-d...