Nearly two years on from Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, neither economic catastrophe nor a popular uprising have come to pass, with most ordinary Russians resigned to war as a fact of life.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently repeated satirist Mikhail Zhvanetsky’s joke that “for our people to truly unite, they need a big war”. But while acknowledging that Zhvanetsky wasn’t serious, Lavrov added that “in every joke, there is an element of truth”.
The minister went further, telling a press conference that despite the estimated 300,000 Russian solders killed or injured since the invasion began on 24 February 2022, the conflict in Ukraine had had a “positive impact on life inside” Russia.
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In some aspects, Lavrov’s assessment appears correct. Despite fears at the start of the war that Western sanctions would cripple Russia’s economy, it has proved remarkably resilient.
The latest World Economic Outlook from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecast that Russian GDP will grow by 2.6% in 2024, up from 1.1% back in October. The UK, by comparison, is expected to grow by just 0.6% this year.
And although inflation remains high and interest rates are at 15%, international attempts to hamper the country’s ability to finance its war effort – by targeting the financial system, oil and gas exports, and thousands of oligarchs – “have not dented Russians’ economic optimism”, said Gallup. The polling company found that record percentages of Russians believe their local economy (56%) and living standards (46%) are improving.
Russia had spent years developing a “sanction-proof economic plan dubbed ‘Fortress Russia’ that included moves like building up foreign reserves, cutting debt, and developing alternatives to Western financial systems such as the SWIFT payments network”, said Quartz. So “life with sanctions hasn’t been quite as bitter as Ukraine-supporting governments may have hoped”.
Russia has successfully transitioned to a “war economy” in which state spending on the military is crowding out other forms of economic growth. This mirrors the economic model of the late Soviet Union, Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the IMF, told CNBC. “If you look at Russia, today, production goes up [for the] military, [and] consumption goes down,” she said. “And that is pretty much what the Soviet Union used to look like. High level of production, low level of consumption.”
What next?
Nearly 20,000 Russians have been detained for protesting against the war. But “all the naive predictions that popular discontent triggered by sanctions and the wartime restrictions imposed on daily life” would “bring down” Putin’s regime have “come to nothing”, said the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank. “In many ways, quite the opposite has happened.”
While it is hard to assess genuine levels of public support for the war or the regime, three in four Russians (75%) polled report being satisfied with their freedom to choose what they do with their lives, according to Gallup. “Satisfaction with freedom has been rising steadily for the past decade, reaching its highest points on record after the invasion of Ukraine,” said the polling company. The war also shows no signs of denting ordinary Russians’ daily levels of stress, worry and sadness, unlike in Ukraine, “where negative experiences have shot up since the war began”.
Many Russians live in a “twilight zone”, said Politico, “where the war is both ubiquitous and nowhere; a rumbling threat as the backdrop to an – almost – ordinary life”.
This may sound “like something straight out of George Orwell’s 1984”, said The Spectator, yet in many ways, Lavrov was correct in his assertion that Russia’s “special military operation” had united the country. The invasion “enabled it to be cleansed of all those who felt no sense of belonging to Russian history or culture”, after thousands moved abroad in opposition to the war.
“Most Russians might not identify with the regime, but they have consolidated around the Kremlin, which they believe to be fighting tooth and nail against a West that is seeking to destroy Russia,” said Carnegie. This may be “at odds with reality”, but “a great many Russians have accepted it as the most logical explanation for this protracted nightmare”.
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