Yeah but Russia is worse than India and behaves in a way that will keep it worse than India.
For example, to deal with the problem of poor areas not having sanitation infrastructure, India launched the Swachh Bharat campaign, building tens of millions of toilets where they were needed. Such a program would never happen in Russia because Russia doesn't care about the health and welfare of its population. The closest equivalent you can find is the systematic looting of toilet seats from Ukraine during this invasion.
To be fair, a lot of India's problems are easy to solve. Russia's problems are practically impossible to solve due to the nature of their economy. Having a population only locally half as rich as Europe is also a problem. Basically, the govt is cash-rich, but the people are too poor to compete globally.
No, not really.
Russia's economy is entirely supported by hydrocarbon sales, and money saved through the previous years to fund this war. The former is hit by the price cap and the simple fact that Russia no longer has customers for its refined oil -- China and India prefer to buy crude oil and refine it themselves. The latter is not infinite, and already largely burnt through.
That's partly incorrect. Russia's selling more oil than ever. And they stopped selling refined fuels only recently to Europe. At least India plans to buy some of their refined fuels for reexports. India would sell Russian petroleum to the domestic market and export their own.
The Paris-based organisation said Russian exports increased by 50,000 barrels per day to 8.3 million bpd last month, estimating that the country did not fully deliver on a threat to cut production sharply.
economictimes.indiatimes.com
The Paris-based organisation said Russian exports increased by 50,000 barrels per day to 8.3 million bpd last month, estimating that the country did not fully deliver on a threat to cut production sharply.
Russia has already become the top supplier of crude to India, accounting for 28% of India's crude imports, up from less than 1% in 2021. India's imports of Russian refined products have also risen to record levels in recent months, though mostly limited to fuel oil. They may soon expand to...
economictimes.indiatimes.com
Their gas sales will definitely decrease though.
The increase in military spending is also not helping Russia's economy grow. All the money that goes into tanks and bombs is money that is not going into investment that actually bring a profitable return. You canbenefit from defense spending if it helps you sell weapons, but that's no longer the case for Russia; nobody wants their weapons anymore, because on the one hand there are sanctions if you do buy them (CAATSA) and on the other hand they have been combat-disproven. Russian weapons are so bad that they had to emergency purchase better ones from Iran! And most of these weapon systems they spend their money on is then turned into vapor in Ukraine. It's just literally burning money, usually with people inside getting burned as well.
Yeah, no idea what they plan to do after the Indian well dries up. It was in the process of drying up even without the sanctions. There may be countries willing to buy in the future, but nothing as of now. I think the best they can do is do what Apple does, build core systems in Russia, assemble in India and sell it as a Made in India product, thereby circumventing the sanctions. It would require Russia to partner up with Indian companies with a marginally minority stake, 49.5%.
Anyway, you are incorrect about Russian weapons being bad. What is acknowledged is they are bad at using their own equipment. Of course, 'cause they don't train enough on it. And that's been established since long ago. The only difference is generational, on both sides. In the environment they are operating in, both Russian and Western weapons are struggling with the same issues.
All the Russian casualties are also a problem for the economy. Corpses are not competitive employees, after all. While you could argue that all the looting and pillaging that they do in Ukraine does represent some influx of wealth for the country, by and large, modern warfare is not a profitable venture. Modern weapon systems are far too expensive for the plunder of a city to offset the cost of battlefield losses.
There's no way Russia's economy is actually growing.
Their GDP isn't growing, but that's not a very relevant metric for a country suffering from the Dutch disease, ie, gets a lot of money from a single source and doesn't properly fit into as complex a calculation as GDP. Less poverty or more poverty doesn't matter to an oil-rich country, they will compensate for it via govt spending, as long as money is coming in from the outside as suplus.
Russia and China have topped the list of countries that registered the highest trade surplus in 2022, according to a report by the national statistical services of both countries, reports state-owned RT news. China positioned itself as the top among the major economies as its surplus trade grew...
www.wionews.com
Russia was placed second as its surplus increased by 1.7 times over the year to a record $333.4 billion. The country’s total exports reached $591.4 billion, up 19.9 per cent from 2021.
According to the data, energy sales constituted the bulk of Russia's foreign exports, reaching $383.73 billion—a 42.8 per cent year-on-year increase. Imports, however, slid 11.7 per cent to $259.1 billion compared to the previous year.
$384B in energy sales with a $1500B economy? That's way too big.
At $227.4B, their CAS is big too.
Russia's current account surplus hit a record high in 2022, the central bank said on Tuesday, as a fall in imports and robust oil and gas exports kept foreign money flowing in despite Western efforts to isolate the Russian economy.
www.reuters.com
These numbers can't be faked, it's internationally available. And it's even bigger if you bring in the black market.
