Posted on 04/30/2024 6:04:01 AM PDT by canuck_conservative
"Military pay, ammunition, tanks, planes, and compensation for dead and wounded soldiers, all contribute to the GDP figures. Put simply, the war against Ukraine is now the main driver of Russia's economic growth" Foucart said...
Other areas of Russia's economy are hurting as the war drags on. Moscow is slammed with a severe labor shortage, thanks to young professionals fleeing the country or being pulled into the conflict. The nation is now short around 5 million workers, according to one estimate, which is causing wages to soar.
Inflation is high at 7.4% — nearly double the 4% target of its central bank. Meanwhile, direct investment in the country has collapsed, falling around $8.7 billion in the first three quarters of 2023, per data from Russia's central bank.
That all puts the Kremlin in a tough position, no matter the outcome of the war in Ukraine. Even if Russia wins, the nation can't afford to rebuild and secure Ukraine, due to the financial costs as well as the impact of remaining isolated from the rest of the global market.
Western nations have shunned trade with Russia since it invaded Ukraine in 2022, which economists have said could severely crimp Russia's long-term economic growth.
"A protracted stalemate might be the only solution for Russia to avoid total economic collapse," Foucart wrote. "The Russian regime has no incentive to end the war and deal with that kind of economic reality. So it cannot afford to win the war, nor can it afford to lose it. Its economy is now entirely geared towards continuing a long and ever deadlier conflict."
Other economists have warned of trouble coming for Russia amid the toll of its war in Ukraine. Russia's economy will see significantly more degradation ahead, one London-based think tank recently warned ...
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Saying anything for a quote, economist calls mom....I did it!
Russia is going to annihilate Ukraine... over and over and over.
Europe will freeze in the dark and bend to Russia's economic might... over and over and over.
Both side are practicing information warfare, without which a war is very had to win.
Wise people know both sides are doing it.
Also a small amount of the money we were spending and would continue to spend on defending ourselves against Russia now and in the future. If Russia crashes and divides it will all of been worth it.
Careful what you wish for. A weak Russia benefits China more than anyone else.
I prefer a strong Russia, one based on industry and innovation instead of on oil and a command economy.
My sources have been right constantly. Your and your fellow Zeepers have constantly been wrong but you're posting outlandish propaganda.
Freep off.
Maybe it was.
All the takeover of the South China Sea, war with India, war with Russia, war with Vietnam on its borders, the destruction and colonization of Tibet, yeah... all just inward looking...
Strawman.
No one said Europe was going to freeze in the dark. What we said, correctly, is that energy prices would soar in Europe because it was cutoff from cheap Russian oil. And, that has been absolutely true. Only someone economically illiterate couldn't figure out that was going to be case.
Now, gutless Zeeper, address the list of propaganda that was posted her by your fellow, all of which is 100% accurate:
1) That Putin was dying TWO years ago of blood, thyroid stomach cancer.
2) That Putin was dead and Russia was using a body double in his place.
3) TWO YEARS ago that Russia was running out of ammo and missiles.
4) That last year's Ukrainian counteroffensive was going to breakthrough Russian defense lines all the way to Crimea.
5) That the Russian economy would collapse due to Western sanctions. Two years later, Russia's GDP is growing at faster rate than ours is.
All the sanction war was done is fueled inflation in this country and the West.
What you're doing is defending the failed policies of the Biden regime that are screwing the citizens of his country over.
If you want to defend Biden's failed proxy and sanction war, BECOME A DEMOCRAT.
"A protracted stalemate might be the only solution for Russia to avoid total economic collapse," Foucart wrote. "The Russian regime has no incentive to end the war and deal with that kind of economic reality. So it cannot afford to win the war, nor can it afford to lose it. Its economy is now entirely geared towards continuing a long and ever deadlier conflict."Yeah right.
Man have you slipped.
Come back with something meaty.
Wait! I thought Putin had cancer and Parkinson’s. At least that’s what was opinionated on FR.
No that was just a warm up, but I thought you’d like to see the nice picture of your dear leader, who just won the the prize for NATO fundraiser of the decade.
I'm a Trump voter, unlike you. Who are you voting for this go around?
As I said they get into little scraps. But, the ones you mentioned generally did not last long and there has no full scale war that they have been in since Korea. Most of the violence occurred during Mao’s regime and that is when they were the most aggressive. But even Mao seemed to moderate in his later years and they have been back to the norm. I see no evidence in the current China that they want to invade great swaths of Asia or mix it up with us.
“ The nation is now short around 5 million workers…”
Coincidentally, there are lots of excess workers in nearby countries, like Germany, Sweden, France, Italy, and the UK.
The truth is, it’s hard to know what the truth is about Putin these days. Or about anything else in the news or online, either, like with covid, the vaxx, anything regarding the 2020 election or J6, too, for that matter.
Regarding Putin, I’m still partial to the art imitating life body double Putin as Putin theory. Kinda like in the 1993 Kevin Kline movie “Dave”, only this time it’s “Vlad” and it’s reality.
Personally, I’d love to see some photographic evidence over time to see if he is or if he ain’t Putin, one way or the other, I don’t care, but I’ve never looked into it.
The cost of war: how Russia’s economy will struggle to pay the price of invading UkraineAuthor: Renaud Foucart
Senior Lecturer in Economics, Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster UniversityPublished: March 11, 2022 5:34am EST
The invasion of Ukraine has placed Russia on the verge of bankruptcy. Interest rates have doubled, the stock market has closed, and the rouble has fallen to its lowest level ever.
The military costs of war have been exacerbated by an unprecedented level of international sanctions, sustained by a large coalition of countries. Russian citizens, now unable to spend at IKEA, McDonald’s or Starbucks, are not allowed to convert any of the money they do have into foreign currency.
Generous estimates suggest the Russian economy could shrink by 7% next year, instead of the 2% growth that was forecast before the invasion. Others say the drop could be as much as 15%.
Such a fall would be bigger than the 1998 crash of the Russian stock markets – a major shock to an economy which has hardly seen any growth in the last decade, and failed to diversify away from exporting oil and gas. Meanwhile the European Union is planning to drastically decrease its energy dependency on Russia, while the the US and the UK have begun to phase out their own, more limited, imports.
Long-term perspectives are dire. If sanctions are maintained, Russia will be cut off from its main trading partners apart from China and Belarus. Rating agencies now predict Russia will soon be unable to pay back its creditors, again with colossal long-term impacts on the economy. Its reputation as a disreputable borrower will make it hard to attract foreign investments without massive guarantees, potentially making it entirely dependent on China.
The economic scenario actually looks even worse if Putin reaches a point where he claims victory in Ukraine. Occupying the country and installing a puppet government would surely involve taking responsibility for rebuilding destroyed infrastructure. And with Ukrainian citizens increasingly pro-European, maintaining peace in such a hostile environment would force Putin to divert a huge amount of resources from the Russian budget.
To get a sense of what that would involve, we can look at what has happened before. After two wars and the destruction of Grozny, Chechnya, in 1999–2000, Russia spends as much as US$3.8 billion (£2.9 billion) a year sustaining its regime in the country. Any decrease in monetary transfers would put Russia at risk of further insurgency, and Crimea costs Russia a comparable amount.
Ukraine’s population of around 40 million is around 40 times larger than Chechnya’s and 20 times that of the Crimean peninsula. The second largest country in Europe by area (after Russia), it will be a very expensive place in which to sustain an occupation.
Today, although Russian losses are a military secret, Ukrainian estimates put the material cost to Putin from the destruction of tanks, planes and weapons at around US$5 billion for just the first two days of the war.
The ultimate price
But it’s not just military hardware that costs money. It may sound strange, distasteful even, but governments and economists do place a monetary value on every human life. It is calculations such as these that decide which drugs or medical treatments the NHS provides on its limited budget.
So far in Ukraine, there are estimates that as many as 12,000 Russian soldiers have been killed. In comparison, around 15,000 soldiers died during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, 8,000 during the first Chechen war, and a slightly larger (but uncertain number) during the second one.
A rough estimate based on life expectancy and GDP per capita suggests that a death toll of 10,000 Russian soldiers would correspond to a cost of more than US$4 billion. To this, one would need to add the huge mental health toll on their families, and on all the soldiers who took part in an active war.
These costs though are irrelevant in the immediate term to the budget of the government. So too is the paltry compensation announced by Putin to the families of dead soldiers, which will be paid in local currency, meaning its actual value may soon be close to zero. Most material and human losses can effectively be listed under the description of “existing assets”, and the cost of replacing them will only be borne in the future.
In the coming days and weeks, whether the cost of war is too high for Putin will depend on two elements. Can the Russian military and defence industry survive without technological imports such as electronics and industrial robots from the West?
And will the impact of sanctions and casualties be sufficient to shift public opinion in a way that threatens the Kremlin? The rest of the very bleak economic warning clouds gathering over Russia will only matter to a leader who cares about the long-term impact of the war on his fellow citizens.
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