As of now, the Russo Ukrainian War has lasted for a full 585 days. Considering the current situation of Russia being constantly sanctioned by the United States and Western countries while fighting, economic data is bound to decline all the way.
But in the end, Russia's GDP data exceeded everyone's expectations. According to IMF statistics, as of the end of 2022, Russia's total GDP reached $2.2 trillion, surpassing established developed countries such as Canada and Italy, and returning to the top 10 in GDP after 8 years.
Faced with numerous obstacles and pressures, how did Russia achieve a strategy of not lowering but increasing?
Firstly, in terms of resources, it is not an exaggeration to say that the term 'vast land and abundant resources' is perfectly appropriate. According to statistical data, Russia has a total land area of 17 million kilometers and is currently the largest country in the world, spanning the Eurasian continent. There are countless proven mineral resources, with oil and natural gas reserves alone reaching 14 billion tons and 4.8 billion cubic meters, respectively. It is worth noting that Russia's revenue from exporting oil alone amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars.
It is no exaggeration to say that Russia can earn at least $300 million a day by selling oil alone, which makes both Japan and South Korea, which are very poor in mineral resources, envious.
However, due to the comprehensive outbreak of the Russo Ukrainian War since last year, international oil and natural gas prices have skyrocketed. Until around the middle of this year, the international oil price reached a historical peak of $128 per barrel, and the price of natural gas has directly increased by more than 10 times.
Despite being plagued by the Russo Ukrainian war, Russia has still achieved a full pot thanks to its advantages in energy.
The second is a significant appreciation of the ruble.
In order to effectively strike Russia, the Ukrainian camp led by Western countries in the United States has continuously implemented economic sanctions and suppression against Russia. The United States directly froze Russia's 300 billion US dollars in foreign exchange, and even kicked Russia out of the SWIFT settlement and payment system.
It is precisely because of this that the ruble experienced a severe depreciation during this period.
Many Russian experts have offered suggestions for this, including an economic expert named Nabiulina who proposed the use of rubles for settlement, and all energy trade with Russia must use rubles for settlement.
More and more countries will purchase Russian energy, and after implementing this ruble, the number of countries that can exchange will only increase. Based on this premise, the exchange rate will naturally rise.
The expert's second proposal is to link the ruble directly to gold. Gold, as a natural currency, is naturally the preferred choice. The ratio of the ruble to gold introduced by Russia is 1:5000. As a world power, Russia, with its international influence, still has many countries willing to hold the ruble.
Didn't the US dollar also gain global trust through its connection to gold in the past?
Thirdly, Russia's many neighboring countries can have a very limited role in offsetting sanctions.
As is well known, heavy industry, military industry, and energy industry have always been strong pillar industries in Russia, but on the contrary, light industry is very weak.
Western countries have also noticed the weakness of Russia's light industry and have implemented sanctions against Russia through divestment, sanctions, and other means.
However, just as Russia was extremely busy with this matter, it suddenly realized that its neighbors were completely unable to provide more than 90% of the goods needed by the domestic people. One needs goods and the other needs resources such as energy, so both parties successfully reached a willingness to cooperate.
So under this favorable timing and location, Russia has undoubtedly minimized the impact of sanctions imposed by Western countries in the United States.
In addition, the reason why Russia can return to the top 10 global economies cannot be separated from the divine assistance of the "pig teammates" of Western countries in the United States.
Since the outbreak of the Russo Ukrainian War, South Korea has been on the opposite side of Russia at the instigation of the United States. However, South Korea has made a fatal mistake. In terms of its own economic structure, it is a country that relies heavily on imports, especially in the production of raw materials. Only by importing cheaper raw materials can market prices be balanced.
Unfortunately, Russia has already blacklisted it, allowing it to exchange prices and raw materials among many neighboring countries. However, when South Korea wanted to import, it was rejected.
This directly led to the complete loss of competitiveness of South Korean goods between China and Japan, but due to the United States not daring to launch this system, they had to watch the Russian economy surpass them step by step.
In fact, in the current situation, Russia is not actually getting richer as it fights. It can only be said that Russia's economic resilience is very strong. As for the true state of the Russian economy, it is estimated that only Russia itself knows.
Imagine investing a large amount of manpower, material resources, and financial resources into war without a better way to obtain benefits. Even with the rampant sale of energy resources, it is still unable to resist the declining profit margin.
The sanctions imposed by Western countries in the United States have already led to the closure of large factories in Russia. If the Russo Ukrainian War does not end, it is believed that this trend will continue to intensify, and the harm of the Russo Ukrainian War to Russia will be fully revealed.
The most important thing Russia should do now is to stop losses as soon as possible and end the Russia Ukraine war as soon as possible.