https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/07/22...uble-business/
A good read to counter the Russian propaganda the west is saturated with. Russia is not now nor has it ever been a great power. It is an economic backwater, cultural wasteland, and open sewer of corruption that anyone who has ambitions beyond feeding a heroin addiction can't get out of fast enough. Instead of throwing ourselves in the dirt and worshiping Putin as certain people seem to think, we should accelerate the switch to green energy, leading to total economic collapse for Russia.Five months into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there remains a startling lack of understanding by many Western policymakers and commentators of the economic dimensions of President Vladimir Putin’s invasion and what it has meant for Russia’s economic positioning both domestically and globally.
Far from being ineffective or disappointing, as many have argued, international sanctions and voluntary business retreats have exerted a devastating effect over Russia’s economy. The deteriorating economy has served as a powerful if underappreciated complement to the deteriorating political landscape facing Putin.
That these misunderstandings persist is not entirely surprising given the lack of available economic data. In fact, many of the excessively sanguine Russian economic analyses, forecasts, and projections that have proliferated in recent months share a crucial methodological flaw: These analyses draw most, if not all, of their underlying evidence from periodic economic releases by the Russian government itself.