And this rise was accompanied by a decline in supply as hundreds of thousands of able-bodied Russians went to the front, or fled the country. As a result, Russia is experiencing a labor shortage.
The graph literally shows the opposite, wtf? There is an increase in supply by millions (72m in 2019 to peak 76m in 2023). The supply nearly catches the demand, which means its workforce is more efficient now. Also i really doubt the real demand of work was that high pre-SMO, there wouldn't be that much unemployed people if that was the case, normally it is the supply of workers the one that is higher.
the graphs are fine, their interpretations are objectively wrong. it seems like they're trying to make russia look bad in every metric lmao.
Yup, I also loved this bit at the end:
Amid the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin has managed to continue to acquire essential chips and semiconductors via third countries, and it has successfully switched its oil exports to Asian buyers. However, the current stability is not likely to endure: in 1-2 years, the structure will begin to wobble due to accumulated imbalances, and possible social problems.
The same people who've been consistently wrong about everything for the past two years, and can't even predict what's going to happen in the short term are now confidently predicting that economic stability in Russia is not likely to endure. Like sure yeah, we can totally take their prediction about what's gonna happen 1-2 years from now seriously.
At this point it's just copium, the toughest moment for Russia was immediately after the initial sanctions but it is clear they've managed to deal with the most important shortages, China doing some heavy ass lifting of course, and get buyers for their exports in the global south, they still haven't completely recovered their export volume but the trend is clearly upwards.
I am sure there are some specific industries having problems replacing specialized part numbers, but they will eventually be produced by China or even produced locally in Russia.
If anything Russia will be in a better spot 1-2 years from now with the steady growth of BRICS and the increasing multi-polarity. Really the only way one can reach the conclusion that Russia will collapse anytime from now is from having internalized racism, thinking that Russians are too primitive to produce certain commodities or that the global south is too primitive to fill the gaps.
Exactly, if sanctions don't work immediately there is zero chance they're going to work later. Economy simply adjusts to work around them, and the longer it goes the more stable it becomes. I mean just look at Iran as an example. The main thing the sanctions are accomplishing is strengthening the BRICS.
The biggest loser in all this will end up being the EU because they genuinely lost something they can't replace. US will be fine because they have their own energy and resources as well as access to whatever Canada's got. I'm also expecting US to ruthlessly cannibalize Europe now that they manged to knock them down a peg. US oligarchs have always been really unhappy with Europe providing a social safety net, and the economic crash provides a perfect opportunity to finally dismantle it.
Really hoping that the takeaway they have is that nationalisation and severing ties to western capitalists is good for the economy, rather than that war is good for the economy.
