[belter]

> Russia is already under increasingly crippling sanctions

You are surely joking...

"IMF raises Russia growth outlook as war boosts economy - New 2024 forecast of 2.6% rise doubles previous prediction and prompts questions over sanctions against Moscow" - https://www.ft.com/content/21a5be9c-afaa-495f-b7af-cf9370931...

[The_Colonel]

It's a war economy. Russia builds a lot of tanks, mans a large army, pays a lot to the families of the fallen, it all adds a lot to the GDP.

But those tanks are going to burn, they don't add value to the economy, won't be exchanged for foreign goods. If you dig a hole into the ground, you increase the GDP, war destruction is not much different in its value creation. GDP is not a perfect measure of an economy.

[mopsi]

> GDP is not a perfect measure of an economy.

An often-used example of this is the crash of oil tanker Exxon Valdez, which in terms of GDP is one of the most productive sea voyages of all time.

[empath-nirvana]

A) Russia is large enough that it doesn't really need foreign trade to have an economy B) We -- ie "the west" have no control over what India and China does wrt russia. If they keep buying Russian oil, we can't stop them.

[SXX]

West can't even stop it's banks from servicing Russia financial transactions or actually ban sales of heavy machinery that used to produce weapons...