All things considered? Their economy is doing much better than the majority of Europe. [1] Austria = 0.4, Canada = 1.7, France = 0.8, Germany = (-0.3), Sweden (-0.5), Switzerland 0.8, Italy = 1.1, etc. The overall growth rate in Europe is 0.6. Russia is at 1.5%. And Wiki is somewhat outdated. Their 2nd quarter growth has been published, and it's now up to 4.9%.
IMO we're currently looking at a major inflection point in history, yet so many have no idea of what's happening. In the USSR there were two major state newspapers, pravda (meaning truth) and novosti (meaning news). A USSR era joke was, "Why do we have two newspapers, truth and news? Well that's because there's no truth in the news, and no news in the truth."
I added the "all things considered" because someone would inevitably come along and suggest that they could be doing better had they not invaded. It's much harder to disagree with the statement I made while also still making the point I wanted to make.
But yeah, I agree with you. Russia's economy is looking very robust right now when compared to many major European economies.
The fact is the Ruble has been in steady decline. https://www.google.com/search?q=price+of+ruble Hit the "Max" tab. If that isn't what destroying their economy looks like, then maybe you need to take a another look.
The data on Wiki is from the IMF. [1] Incidentally it's also outdated there. The recent changes continue to trend in the same direction. They're reporting Russia's growth as 2.2% while Germany's down to -0.5%. Interestingly Russia is now growing even faster than the US as well.
It's definitely true that Russia's currency is currently weakening, but the reason this is a threat is not because that in and of itself, but rather knock-on effects. A big one is inflation. And Russia is absolutely seeing rapidly increasing inflation right now [2], but it remains to see if that starts hitting threatening levels.
In the current state of the world I think putting your money in any currency is absurdly risky, with very little hope for meaningful returns. It's the reason even US treasuries are paying out such high interest rates. As always, it seems the only real hedge is "real" things - precious metals, real estate, and so on.
Russia is a pariah state, sanctioned and with more sanctions coming. Yes, the sanctions are working - they take time, and the fall of the ruble absolutely shows this. The ruble has done nothing but drop over time. The Euro and the Dollar fluctuate but are not in the shitter like the ruble is. The more war that russia wants to wage, the lower their currency will fall and the rest of the civilized world turns their back to russia. And nobody should believe that russia's growth is "2.2%" when they lie about everything and anything, including the state of their economy.
Again, the figures are coming from the IMF, who not only assess the figures independently, but also offer their own independent projections as well. And a weak currency is not an inherent problem. For net exporters it's a benefit. It means that right now Russia is getting more ruble for every ounce of oil they sell, yet the buyers aren't paying anymore for it. Win win for everybody. If those inflows don't create real problems, like inflation, then the low exchange rate is just driving wealth generation and economic growth. This is why export heavy places like China go out of their way to weaken their currency.
As for pariah, the main countries trying to "isolate" Russia are the US and the usual suspects. And "we" make up less than 15% of the world. It's why we carried out the equivalent of a nuclear economic attack with the sanctions, yet here we are, a year later, debating minutia when looking at the impact.
The ruble peaked in 2008 at 0.043USD, and this week it was at 0.009, and you're trying to tell me this is a good thing? lol, quit huffing Putin's farts.
IMO we're currently looking at a major inflection point in history, yet so many have no idea of what's happening. In the USSR there were two major state newspapers, pravda (meaning truth) and novosti (meaning news). A USSR era joke was, "Why do we have two newspapers, truth and news? Well that's because there's no truth in the news, and no news in the truth."
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_real_GDP_...