When the war started it was seizure-this and sanction-that. I’ve read that $350B in Russian assets were seized and held, while major companies exited the Russian market, the ruble crashed, and inflation rocketed.
Meanwhile the cost of the Russian war must be astronomical to maintain, imports/exports have halted with Europe, there’s no financial aid to Russia (that I’m aware of) and multi-billion dollar resource supplies were cancelled.
All this, and Russia seems to still be having a good old time. Russians are on holidays en mass, the country is buying up arms and fossil fuels like its church Sunday, and their war machine still powers away and is prepared to keep fighting for a decade if it has to.
How? How does a country take that much of a financial beating and still be thriving? Where is the point of being broke and not being able to fund a war anymore?
I wonder how much of it was just good old propaganda. I know it’s a lot, just curious to what extent. What proportion of Russia’s GDP the sanction represented. Also eVen Europe kept buying fuel from Russia. i m sure they still do to some extent. War is a funny thing you would think it’s all pure hatred , but the older I get more I see it as just kinetic négociation between the owners. With a bit of marketing sprinkled on it. To quote Lord Faarquad " Some of you may die, but that’s a sacrifice I am willing to make"
Reuters
Whether that’s “enough” or as much as expected, I don’t know. But it gives some context on what’s happened.