Why the economic war against Russia has failed
spectator.co.uk
spectator.co.uk
This is nothing new for Russia. No reliable stats (contemporary nor reconstructions) exist for the USSR either, because they were fudged so hard at that no-one knows the truth anymore. How many tons of milk were produced in 1970? Individual farms fudged their production numbers, districts did too, as did states and the central ministry in Moscow to fill quotas and announce hitting 5-year-plan targets in 3 years and earn bonuses.
In 2023, the goal is to show that sanctions don't work at all and damage the west more than they do Russia, so please remove the sanctions.
As for the economic aspect, the ideas expressed in the article are just someone's fantasy. Russia is a huge country with a large amount of various supplies. There is no way to expect a collapse of the country in a short timeline. What is happening is a gradual process: talent drain, further population decline etc. But many people, at least those whose families are not touched by the draft, live more or less as before. And they will live like this for a few years, maybe not even noticing the gap increasing again between Russia and the West.
There are a few things that maybe aren't that good for Russia long term:
1) Chinese influence over Russia is increasing a lot. Russia is more dependent on China than China is on Russia.
2) A lot of Russian oil and especially gas is on the wrong side of the country for shifting exports to China. That made a lot of sense when most of that was heading west instead of east.
3) Several of the companies that maintained oil and gas infrastructure, like BP, left Russia. It's not clear if the Russians themselves are capable of keeping things going. E.g. BP operated a lot of infrastructure in Siberia (i.e. close to China). A lot of the components and technology for that came from abroad. What happens when that stuff breaks down?
4) Russia's labor market is suffering a two way brain drain. Millions of people moved out of the country; especially more educated young people. And hundreds of thousands were sent to the front. Casualty rates are high (deaths and severe injuries). That's going to have some impact on their economy. This might not be immediate but it's not good.
5) Europe went cold turkey on Russian gas. That was short term disruptive but it seems to be coping. The next few winters might still be interesting but it looks like overall, Europe will manage without Russian gas. That revenue isn't coming back to Russia and it's only partially being offset by China and India.
6) Ruble prices are state controlled. Most Russians are not allowed to trade or own foreign currency. Or leave the country. So, the economics may look better than they really are. The only rubles traded are those used to pay for Russian oil and gas.
7) The Chinese are making a big push to renewables and are actually leading that effort. A lot of their current imports are a stop gap solution until they can cut their dependence on fossil fuels. That dependence is not a permanent thing for them. They have a lot of coal plants but hardly any gas plants for generating electricity. Heating is mostly coal based with only some of that shifting to gas based heating. I'll doubt the Chinese will want to become very dependent on Russian natural gas or oil and they are switching to electric vehicles in a hurry (which obviously don't require petrol).
That doesn't add up to anything good economically long term for Russia.
For the masses living in the country, things didn't changed much as they are very poor, except those drafted. People living in big cities experience just a few aspects of the future. But the main thing is that whatever was left of trust, of the basic human assumption that you don't kill other people, has been completely destroyed.
The economic war against Russia has not failed.
The economic war against Russia has boomeranged.