by Eric Zuesse, The Duran:

On July 1st, the World Bank headlined “World Bank country classifications by income level for 2024-2025”, and reported that, “This year, three countries — Bulgaria, Palau, and Russia — moved from the upper-middle-income to the high-income category.”
Their explanation in the case of Russia (the only large country among the three) was:
Economic activity in Russia was influenced by a large increase in military related activity in 2023, while growth was also boosted by a rebound in trade (+6.8%), the financial sector (+8.7%), and construction (+6.6%). These factors led to increases in both real (3.6%) and nominal (10.9%) GDP, and Russia’s Atlas GNI per capita grew by 11.2%.