The Russian economy proved “much more resilient than many Western governments assumed” after they slapped “a punishing string of sanctions” 19 months ago, a US newspaper has reported.
“Moscow has found other buyers for its oil. It has pumped money into the economy at a rapid pace [….], putting almost every available worker into a job and raising the size of weekly paychecks,” the newspaper pointed out.
The media outlet cited the Russian Central Bank as estimating that the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) may rise as much as 2.5% this year, something that the newspaper suggested “could outpace the European Union and possibly even the United States.”
The forecast comes after President Vladimir Putin announced that the Russian economy had recovered from Western sanctions.
“In general, we can say that the restoration of the Russian economy has been completed. We withstood absolutely unprecedented external pressure, the sanctions onslaught of some ruling elites in the so-called Western bloc, some ruling elites in certain countries, which we call unfriendly," Putin stated at a meeting on the planning of the federal budget for 2024.
He said that Russia's GDP had reached the 2021 level, and that it may amount to be 2.5-2.8% by the end of this year.
Furthermore, the country’s oil and gas revenues in July-August have recovered the level of last year, while non-oil and gas revenues have significantly exceeded 2022’s figures, according to Putin.
The same tone was struck by Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, who previously told a Chinese news outlet that the Russian economy is expected to grow by about 2.5% this year on the back of the government's efforts to mitigate the impact of Western sanctions. He added that inflation in Russia is on track to hit 6% by the end of 2023, but that the government expects it to return to the 4% target next year.
Since the beginning of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, Western countries have imposed 11 packages of sanctions, which affected various sectors of the Russian economy.