While European countries' sanctions on Russia have been nothing but an exercise in self-harm, the drastic downturn anti-Russia hawks anticipated for the Russian economy failed to pan out, as new data proves.
Russia’s foreign debt decreased for the first time in three years in 2022, reaching 4.039 trillion rubles ($53.3 billion), the country’s Accounts Chamber has revealed. The country's external debt was down from 4.44 trillion rubles ($58.5 billion) registered in 2021, according to Russia's Accounts Chamber.
Furthermore, the total public debt last year stood at 22.82 trillion rubles ($302.7 billion), with its share relative to Russia's gross domestic product (GDP) at 17.1% This figure is a climbdown from the previous 18.1% recorded.
These numbers show that Russia's debt-to-GDP ratio is the lowest among G20 economies. Earlier, the German Finance Ministry revealed that Germany's national debt has jumped tenfold since 2021. The national debt of Italy in 2022 also set a new record.
Taking into account the accumulated reserves, the public debt of the Russian Federation is currently at a safe level,” the Accounts Chamber press service said.
The data comes as many experts predicted a drastic downturn for the Russian economy amid fallout from the special military operation in Ukraine that Moscow announced on February 24, 2022. Westen countries, spearheaded by Washington, had implemented far-reaching sanctions against Russia, targeting its economy, banking sector, phasing out and banning Russia's major energy commodities such as oil, petroleum products, gas and coal, etc.
But for all the hue and cry about seeking to "cripple" Russia's economy, the country's GDP decreased by just 2.1% in 2022, in defiance of some earlier Western projections of a decline of up to 20%. In a report published in January, the International Monetary Fund forecast that Russian economic growth would outpace that of Germany and the United Kingdom in 2023.
The International Monetary Fund has revised upwards its estimate of Russian economic development, projecting GDP to grow by 0.3% this year, and 2.1% in 2024. All told, figures do not lie, showing that the sanctions blitzkrieg conceived by the so-called collective West to target Russia and turn it into a pariah state have widely missed the mark.