Reference News Network, February 26 report: The German newspaper "Die Welt" website published an article titled "Why Over 20,000 Western Sanctions Have Not Destroyed the Russian Economy" on February 24. The author is Edward Steiner, and the content is compiled as follows:

As the conflict enters its fifth year, the Russian economy is in a difficult phase. However, the repeated claims that the Russian economy is about to collapse are likely exaggerated.

Although the West implemented an unprecedented number of sanctions almost overnight, which have now increased to nearly 24,000, the Russian economy only contracted by 1.4% in the first year of the war, which initially seemed like a miracle. Later, Oleg Veyugin, former deputy governor of the Russian Central Bank, said in an interview that people gradually came to understand the workings of this new situation. Therefore, strong growth of more than 4% in 2023 and 2024 is not so surprising; and the sharp drop in growth to 1% in 2025 is also not unexpected.

Investigating the source of this resilience, one reason lies in the design of the Western sanctions themselves. Although no country has ever been subjected to such extensive sanctions before, these sanctions ultimately proved to be "cautiously quantitative." Vasiliy Astrakhov, a Russia expert at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, said: "Many existing loopholes resulted from the sanctioning countries' desire to minimize the negative impact on their own economies as much as possible."

Astrakhov cited an example: At the beginning of the conflict, although large Russian banks were excluded from the SWIFT system, Western banks remaining in Russia were not included. The import of Russian uranium or titanium used in aircraft manufacturing was also not sanctioned. And restrictions on Russian oil exports were only introduced nearly a year after the outbreak of the conflict.

Fladislav Inozemtsev, who previously served as an economic advisor to the Kremlin and now resides in Washington, is the co-founder of the Center for European Analysis and Strategy. He said: "Only if all the sanctions had been implemented in the first three to four weeks after the outbreak of the conflict at the current scale could they have weakened the Russian economy. But the gradual implementation of sanctions by the West gave Russia the opportunity to find ways around them and adapt to changing conditions."

Inozemtsev believes that the adaptability of Russian entrepreneurs is almost the most important reason for the economic resilience: "Private entrepreneurs want to survive and keep their businesses. They are accustomed to operating under competitive and low-profit conditions." This ability did not come out of nowhere. Natalia Zubarevich, a Moscow economist, said: "After multiple crises, entrepreneurs have developed the ability to quickly assess and respond to strategies in unfamiliar environments."

Production quickly shifted, and new logistics chains were rapidly established. Of course, without the participation of the "Global South" countries (which have not joined the sanctions), success would have been greatly reduced. On one hand, these countries have historically and currently acted as hubs for re-exporting Western goods (including sanctioned items such as semiconductor chips) to Russia. On the other hand, after Europe stopped buying oil from Russia, India became an important buyer of Russian oil.

However, investment largely had to be carried out by the Russian government. Since the start of the conflict, it has been making large-scale investments. Funds mainly flowed into the defense sector and were used to pay soldiers' salaries. This not only raised overall wage levels in the market, thus stimulating consumption, but also boosted other civilian sectors, helping to offset the decline in exports. Like Astrakhov, Inozemtsev also emphasized that fiscal stimulus is the core prerequisite for the resilience of the Russian economy.

The reason Russia can afford these expenditures is due to the strict financial discipline enforced by a highly professional economic team within the system. Inozemtsev emphasized that during the first two years of the conflict, the Russian economic team (that is, the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance) performed extremely efficiently, successfully dealing with issues such as the ruble exchange rate, fiscal policy, and taking over Western companies.

In contrast, many observers believe that the failure of the West lay in listing many Russian billionaires on the sanctions list, which in a way forced these billionaires to return hundreds of billions of dollars in funds to Russia. Astrakhov believes: "This partly explains the high growth of investment in Russia in 2023 and 2024." (Translated by Jiao Yu)

Original: toutiao.com/article/7611103975467418146/

Statement: The article represents the personal views of the author.