The Russian economy is not falling apart

…the economic decline is not as precipitous as some experts had expected it would be after the Feb. 24 invasion. Inflation is still high, around 17 percent on an annual basis, but it has come down from a 20-year peak in April. A closely watched measure of factory activity, the S&P Global Purchasing Managers’ Index, showed that Russian manufacturing expanded in May for the first time since the war began.

Behind the positive news is a combination of factors playing to Mr. Putin’s advantage. Chief among them: high energy prices, which are allowing the Kremlin to keep funding the war while raising pensions and wages to placate ordinary Russians. The country’s oil revenues are up 50 percent this year.

Here is more from the NYT.  Most of the story focuses on how a Russian-owned version of McDonald’s has reopened, serving what is broadly the same food.  But they don’t serve Big Macs because…the sauce is proprietary.  Presumably they already were making the sauce on their own?  It is funny which parts of international law a country will or will not break.

And here WaPo reports that Russia is winning the war.

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