Paul Goble
Staunton, Sept. 29 – The future of the Russian economy and of the Russian state itself depends to a large degree on how long the war in Ukraine continues because Russia is acting more or less on its own while Ukraine is benefiting as the USSR did during World War II from lend-lease and other assistance from other countries, Sergey Tsyplyaev says.
The main question now, the editor of Vlast says, is whether the economy will survive the campaign and consequently whether the country will as well. Sometimes, the stress of war is so great that both collapse, and that is a possibility for Russia the longer the Ukrainian war goes on because of the imbalance between the sides (rosbalt.ru/russia/2022/09/29/1975756.html).
While the Russian economy is far larger than the Ukrainian one, Russia is operating under serious disadvantages, including sanctions, the mobilization of 300,000 men and the flight of 700,000 more, and the difficulties of operating an economy when the supplies on which it had relied are growing.
Ukraine has a smaller economy, but it is not subject to sanctions. Instead, it is being constantly provided with funds and arms from other countries both in the form of direct aid and lend-lease arrangements and thus is not subject to the same kind of risks economic and political that Russia is, the editor says.
And that means this: if this war becomes not a rapid campaign but a war to exhaustion, Ukraine is far better positioned than Russia; and the longer the war goes on, the worse the Russian economy and standards of living will become and the greater problems the economy and thus the state will face.
Indeed, the only potentially bright spot in all this for Russia, Tsyplyaev suggests, would be rising world prices for Russian exports like oil and gas. That could finance things, but such trends are not necessarily sustainable.
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