Four years after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian economy is showing clear signs of structural exhaustion. The contours of a genuine economic endgame are coming into view for Russia. This is the finding of a new Kiel Report published by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy and the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics.
We’ve been hearing the same idiots saying “sanctions didn’t work immediately therefore they don’t work” since 2022. Those of us with higher than room temperature IQs realised that Russia planned for the war and sanctions to the tune of a $600 billion savings fund.
I still find it hilarious that Russia left about half of this in hostile countries that confiscated it immediately. Imagine Russia had that extra cash? They probably would have had a chance of winning this war without that blunder.
I never said that sanctions don’t work to hurt a country’s economy. That part is evident.
However, very few wars have been ended by sanctions alone. So in that sense, no, they do not work anywhere near as well as everyone thinks they do.
You would have a point if it was sanctions alone that Russia was facing.
It is fortunate in this case that Russia is also up against a well motivated Ukrainian army whose attacks have been increasing in sophistication as the war has progressed. Russia on the other hand has been on the back foot recently, they have appeared unable to adjust to Ukraine’s drone strikes on logistics behind the front lines and have had a net loss in square km gained the last 4 months in a row.
I wouldn’t say the Russian side is doing well, I completely agree with all of that.
But if someone has “hit their limits” like the article claims it means they can’t go on anymore. The fact that they can still ramp up attacks and aren’t losing ground massively means that hasn’t happened yet.
The war is at an impasse right now and I don’t think the next few months of the war are going to be very pretty…