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Comment by The_Colonel | Hacker News Reader

> However, it's pretty obvious that Russia is doing massive amounts of trade with China and India.

For sure India and China are eager to exploit the very unequal relationship where Russia now needs India and China much more than the opposite.

The Russian economy is not collapsing, but I'm pretty sure it's hurting. Even if we had real GDP figures, they'd be misleading as now a significant part of the GDP is coming from production of military gear which is literally being burned and does not generate income or feed into other parts of the economy.

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This is just wild speculation that's completely baseless I'm afraid. We've literally been hearing this story for nearly two years now, and there is zero substantive evidence to support any of these assertions.

It's just basic economics. India and China have a bigger leverage, it would be stupid of them to not use it.

I mean, what's the alternative explanation of why India increased the Russian oil imports tenfold? It's not because of good will, it's because India can suddenly import Russian oil much cheaper than before. Why does Russia sell oil cheaper to India? Because it won't find another such big customer.

Basic economics say that Russia is a major commodity exporter and that as long as there is global demand for these commodities then Russia will have no problem selling them. It's like you don't understand how basic supply and demand works. India gets a great deal because it can buy oil from Russia at a slight discount and then resell it to Europe at a large markup. The loser here isn't Russia but Europe.

> India gets a great deal because it can buy oil from Russia at a slight discount and then resell it to Europe at a large markup. The loser here isn't Russia but Europe.

You're contradicting yourself. India is selling at a market rate, so if there's a profit to make, it's coming from the Russian side. Pick one - either India has a big markup or Russia sells with only small discount. Both can't be true.

You're the one who said that India can suddenly import Russian oil much cheaper than before. So, using your logic India is selling oil to Europe at a markup. If Russia is selling to India at a small discount, then India is still making money directly at the expense of Europe.

I'm happy to admit that India is making money as middlemen, that's exactly how the price cap was supposed to work. But given India is selling at market price, it's cutting into Russian profits. Indian profit is the same as Russian loss, so it's really silly to claim that Russian discount is "small" while India makes "big" markups.

That's absolutely not how the price cap was supposed to work since India is buying at a higher price than the cap and we've seen repeated complaints from western officials regarding this fact. Again, as many articles I've linked show, there is no sign that this is cutting into Russian profits in any significant way/ However, it absolutely is devastating European economy.

I'll reiterate my point since it clearly escaped you. The question is which economy is being hurt more relatively speaking. There is clear evidence that European economy is suffering and countries like Germany are now in recession. There is no such evidence regarding Russian economy.

> The question is which economy is being hurt more relatively speaking.

2022 GDP growth:

* Germany +1.9%

* Russia -2.1% (according to Russia's agency)

Yeah, evidence absolutely points to European economy getting hammered while Russia is better than ever.

now let's forward and see how things are going in 2023

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/25/economy/germany-recession-q1-...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-25/germany-e...

https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/russian-economy-minis...

Evidence absolutely does point to European economy getting hammered while Russia is better than ever. I have to ask what your agenda is here given that you keep trying to pretend things that are obviously happening aren't happening?

>> while Russia is better than ever.

In same fairytale, that may be so. In the real world, oil and gas revenue is 40% of Russia's federal budget and down -52% YoY as of April, so that's more than -20% from oil and gas alone gone before taking collapse of other exports and explosion of military expenditure into account. At this rate, we'll see a replay of 1998 soon.

In the real world Russia is making pre-war level profits of its energy exports. It's like you don't understand the concept of supply and demand, the need for the energy and other commodities that Russia was exporting hasn't magically gone away, and you can't just make these things appear out of thin air. The fact that so many people are unable to wrap their heads around is idea is just amazing.

Nice move of goalposts from "better than ever" to "pre-war", that is, Covid-riddled era with low demand.

The hard facts are that federal revenue is down -22% while expenditure is up +26% and Russia is running a 30% deficit.

That's some nice cherry-picking. German "barely a recession" projected at -0.1% over 2023 with most of the Europe growing is "getting hammered". Russia with -2.3% is "better than ever".

I mean if you're just going to keep repeating that then there's no point continuing this conversation. The Reuters link I provided clearly shows that Russia is projecting growth this year.

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