“How Russia has avoided bankrupting itself after 2 years of waging war in Ukraine”

What's the saying? Russia is a gas station with nuclear weapons? Interesting article.

Two years into the war in Ukraine, Russia's economy still appears resilient. While wartime activities have supported the economy, Russia also entered the war in a sound economic position. Russia still has enough money to sustain the war unless its oil revenues drop substantially.

Russia's wartime economy is booming.

That may sound counterintuitive, but headline GDP growth is not unusual in times of conflict.

While there are doubts over the accuracy and completeness of the rosy economic data Russia has released over the past two years, Moscow looks poised to continue funding its war for a third year — and wars are expensive.

"From a purely economic standpoint, Russia has considerable room to continue waging war," Hassan Malik, a global macro strategist and Russia expert at Boston-based investment management firm Loomis Sayles, told Business Insider.

After all, Russia has been sanction-proofing itself since 2014, when it was hit with a raft of trade restrictions after it illegally annexed Crimea from Ukraine. On top of that, it's still supported by revenues from its oil sales.

Here's how Russia has managed to keep its economy strong even after two years of waging war.

Hit the  link above for the five answers. And below is a further excerpt from the end of the article.

Despite the boom, Putin is trying to solve an economic "trilemma" a former Russian central bank official said recently.

"His challenges are threefold: he must fund his ongoing war against Ukraine, maintain his populace's living standards, and safeguard macroeconomic stability," Alexandra Prokopenko wrote about Putin in Foreign Policy in January.

"Achieving the first and second goals will require higher spending, which will fuel inflation and thus prevent the achievement of the third goal," she added.

Putin already had to personally apologize for the price of eggs in Russia, which soared 42% in the 12 months prior to November 2023, according to data from the country's statistics agency Rosstat.