https://theconversation.com/russias-economy-is-now-completely-driven-by-the-war-in-ukraine-it-cannot-afford-to-lose-but-nor-can-it-afford-to-win-221333
by Aggravating_Sense183
https://theconversation.com/russias-economy-is-now-completely-driven-by-the-war-in-ukraine-it-cannot-afford-to-lose-but-nor-can-it-afford-to-win-221333
by Aggravating_Sense183
12 comments
Thanks.
Excerpts from the linked article by lecturer in economics Renaud Foucart:
*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.*
*And it is a war that Russia cannot afford to win. The cost of rebuilding and maintaining security in a conquered Ukraine would be too great, and an isolated Russia could at best hope to become a junior partner entirely dependent on China.*
*In a context of collapsing infrastructure and growing social unrest inside Russia, the projected cost of rebuilding the occupied area is already massive.*
*A protracted stalemate might be the only solution for Russia to avoid total economic collapse.*
*Having transformed the little industry it had to focus on the war effort, and with a labour shortage problem worsened by hundreds of thousands of war casualties and a massive brain drain, the country would struggle to find a new direction.*
*Thirty-five years after the fall of the Berlin wall, it has become clear that resource-rich Russia has become much poorer than its former Soviet neighbours such as Estonia, Latvia, Poland and Hungary, who pursued the route of European integration.*
*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.*
Incredibly costly. Russia don’t have the money to rebuild. Their state budget is now 30% on the war. They aren’t even able to properly mobilise.
Basically true for all wars. Money wise everyone looses big time even when they win.
When you think about what they could have done with that money and man power. War seems even more idiotic than it already is.
I hope Putin’s Russia calls for a complete mobilization of the country and Ukraine gets all the much coveted 155 ammunition.
If nothing else, we will reach 40.000 pepsi /day and call it a slow Sunday.
I wonder how long this can actually last for Russia, the Soviet-Afghan war was almost a decade which was a fraction of the losses they’ve endured in Ukraine but that seemed to strain the economy quite a bit, granted the economy was poo already before that.
With Russia having doubled their military spending since pre-invasion. Is all that money going to more of the workforce to keep the existing military industrial complex going 24/7 or have they allocated money for new factories and/or repurposing other facilities to work on military equipment?
Has China, India and others taken the up an equal brunt of the monetary losses they endured with the West mostly leaving the Russian market? Russia has mostly been an exporter of natural resources, from the top of my head they don’t really make anything of significance to sell, maybe apart from military equipment but they need all of that currently.
Does Ukraine need to hold on until Russia has depleted their storage of military equipment, and they physically can’t replace equipment fast enough or can there be cracks before that?
This is called the [broken window fallacy](https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/broken-window-fallacy.asp). Remember it next time you see Russian bots gloating about Russian GDP.
Even if Russia fully conquers Ukraine they will remain a backward and degraded society. Their economy is built on skulls and artillery shells. When there’s no more needs for that, the sandcastle’s foundations will be washed away.
Sinks like their warships.
Money well spent for anyone donating money. Every 1 dollar spent on weapons takes a dollar away from Russia.
Haven’t read, but I disagree with a premise anyway. Claim that economy that is driven by war is just ridiculous. If war ends, and you’re worried about people losing jobs in the war economy, then just pay people without them doing the job anyway, it is not gonna affect bottom line, military goods don’t make money anyway unless you sell them.
Imagine how this sewer state will look like when Ukraine will have long range missiles and planes. They’ll be driven back to stone age.
The damage will be seen over the long term. All the loss of talent and lack of investment in the rest of the economy.