So, how’s that proxy war in Ukraine going? The War Machine in Washington would have us believe that it’s totally worth the endless months of death and destruction to bring the Russian bear to its knees.
Except that that doesn’t look like happening any time soon.
Despite hyperventilating coverage from the same media who cheer-led 20 years of fruitless war in the Middle East, the country formerly known as The Most Corrupt in Europe isn’t exactly winning on the battlefield. Despite its enormous numerical advantage at the start of the war, and despite the tens of billions of US taxpayer-funded arms poured into the country.
And, despite predictions of economic collapse, Russia is surfing out the sanctions far better than expected.
Russia’s economy may face multiple long-term challenges, but for now energy exports appear to be helping it ride out Western sanctions imposed over the offensive against Ukraine.
Moscow says inflation is easing and employment is virtually full, contradicting the predictions of a catastrophe from many financial experts.
The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday offered some support to Russia’s view, saying recession will be less severe than expected due to oil exports and relatively stable domestic demand.
This is a significant revision, given the IMF was just a few months ago forecasting a contraction twice as big.
In fact, sanctions appear to be hurting the West far more than they are Russia. European countries, including EU economic powerhouse Germany, are planning severe energy rationing to make it through the winter, as “renewables” once again fail dismally to meet demand — and the supply of Russian gas has disappeared.
In an even worse own-goal, far from weakening the authoritarian “axis” of Russia and China, all that sanctions have achieved is to drive them closer together. If Europe won’t take Russia’s gas, China is more than happy to.
Russia and China have already announced their intention to settle gas and electricity contracts in rubles and yuan, a triumph for the Kremlin’s efforts to take the US dollar out of the economy.
Last week’s OPEC+ oil cartel’s decision to slash output again, despite Washington’s call to open the taps, was also warmly greeted by Moscow, which benefits from rising crude prices.
With the G7 rich nations club struggling to agree a ceiling price for Russian oil, a cap China and India appear reluctant to follow, Russia’s prospects do indeed appear to be improving.
Way to go, guys. That sure showed ‘em.
It’s not all good news for Russia, of course.
However the Russian economy finds itself ever more dependent on energy exports and slipping further behind on many high value sectors.
The promise of Russia developing its own hi-tech products once imported from abroad remains to be fulfilled, and it lacks domestic rivals to tech giants like Apple and Microsoft.
Radio France Internationale
But where do Apple and Microsoft get all their tech actually made? China, of course — China, which has demonstrated that it has absolutely no compunction about stealing Western intellectual property. If China wants Russian energy, there’s plenty it might sell them in return.
Still, Russia’s economy is heavily dependent on energy: putting all your economic eggs in one basket is always a risky move. But, as Western countries continue to nobble their own energy industries out of lunatic devotion to climate alarmist fantasies, that basket will likely churn out golden eggs for quite some time yet.
But, hey, at least the Washington war machine cronies have got their lucrative foreign wars, back. Spare a thought for the Daddy Warbuckses.
