Experts estimate Russia’s economy could shrink between 7% and 15% this year
Wars don’t always go according to plan, and sometimes they can easily get out of control.
It’s hard to be 100% sure what exactly Russian President Vladimir Putin had in mind when he decided to invade Ukraine on February 24, but most believe he planned a quick victory within days.
More than a month later, the military conflict has turned into a protracted war of attrition.
U.S. military analysts Benjamin Johnson, Tyson Wetzel and JB Barranco wrote for the Atlantic Council, a U.S. think tank, “We assess that Russia may resort to a war of attrition, Depleting Ukrainian supplies, blocking access to the Black Sea, and ultimately preventing farmers from farming and causing a famine in Ukraine.”
But the war of attrition is protracted, and Russia itself has to pay a huge price. The question is, how expensive is it?
Abandoned Russian military vehicles can be seen everywhere, which experts say shows a logistical problem in Russia
Ed Arnold, a European security researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, a British think-tank, told the BBC: “Continued military operations are expensive, especially when troops are deployed far from their bases. ”
“You need a lot of ammunition supplies, and fuel supplies to mobilize the war machine, and troops need food supplies.”
Russia is waging a war in Ukraine, and there is plenty of evidence that Russia has suffered logistical problems, most notably seeing many Russian military vehicles abandoned in various parts of Ukraine after malfunctioning.
“They were not ready because they thought this military operation would be over in a few days,” Arnold said.
Convoy of Russian military vehicles advancing to Kyiv
Retired U.S. Admiral James Stavridis, who is also dean emeritus of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, said that with Russia The source of military spending is slowly depleting, and the cost of war is increasing.
Although Russia’s foreign exchange reserves (nearly $600 billion) are among the highest in the world, most of them are now held in Western bank accounts due to economic sanctions.
How much did Russia spend?
According to the Center for Economic Recovery, a group of economic experts advising the Ukrainian government, direct Russian military spending was at least $19.9 billion in the first 23 days of the Ukraine invasion.
They also estimate that the cost of Russian military installations and hardware lost and destroyed in the war was as high as $9 billion.
The above amounts do not include the cost of launching cruise missiles and the likely loss of Russia’s gross domestic product (in terms of population) over the next 40 years.
Ukrainian intelligence estimates Russian war costing tens of billions of dollars
Ukraine claimed on March 19 that more than 14,000 Russian soldiers had been killed by the time of the war.
The cost of war also includes the cost of evacuation, the cost of treating the wounded, the cost of buying arms and ammunition, fuel, repair parts, military rations, and so on.
The above military spending cannot be independently verified, and experts consulted by the BBC are cautious due to the many uncertainties involved, but they all agree that keeping the war machine running is expensive.
Russian ruble falls after economic sanctions, inflation rises
This question depends on how effective the economic sanctions of Western countries are.
More importantly, it also depends on whether European countries can afford to ban Russian gas imports. Russia supplies about 40% of European gas imports, so banning Russian gas imports is a big challenge.
The SWIFT organization, the international financial exchange payment mechanism, has already excluded some Russian banks, and it is unclear whether it will be further expanded, forcing Putin to have no way to accept payments in foreign currencies.
Finally, how long Russia’s resources can last also depends on its allies, one of which is particularly critical.
China expresses concern over this ‘military operation’
Experts agree that China can exert influence in the war, but there are divergent views on what role China decides to play.
The Beijing government expresses extreme concern about the situation, but on the other hand is reluctant to call it an “invasion”, simply describing it as a “military operation”.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng said on March 19 that Western sanctions were “increasingly outrageous”.
He said the West’s approach was unilateral sanctions that resulted in the “unreasonable deprivation” of overseas assets of Russian citizens.
He said, “Historical experience has proven time and again that sanctions cannot solve problems. Sanctions will only harm ordinary people, impact the economic and financial system, and make the world economy even worse.”
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng says the West’s approach is unilateral sanctions, “more and more outrageous”
Renaud Foucart, a senior lecturer at Lancaster University in the UK, said China was extremely important to Russia given the “dire” situation in Russia over the long term.
“If sanctions continue, Russia will be cut off from its main trading partners, leaving only China and Belarus,” Foucar said.
But Maxim Mironov, a professor at IE Business School in Spain, believes that too much dependence on China is also unreliable.
“China will buy resources from Russia at very low prices and sell to Russia at very high prices,” he said.
“Russia will become a Chinese colony by then, and China will be the only winner of this war.”
Russia says it will not be isolated by the world even if it is sanctioned
Russia has said that Western sanctions will not isolate a big country like Russia from the world.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the media on March 5, “The world is so big that Europe and the United States alone cannot isolate certain countries, especially a big country like Russia.”
But the value of the Russian currency, the ruble, has fallen sharply, the stock market has largely been suspended, inflation remains high, interest rates have doubled and more than 400 foreign companies have left the country.
Some experts estimate that the Russian economy could shrink by between 7% and 15% this year, and there are concerns that the Russian government could go into debt.
“Russian industry has come to a standstill,” Mironov said.
Can Western sanctions reduce Russian support for Putin?
Whether the cost of war will exceed Putin’s ability to bear in the coming weeks will depend to a large extent on two factors, Foucar said.
The first is whether Russia’s military and defense industries can continue to survive without Western technology imports.
The second is whether Western sanctions can change Russian domestic public opinion for Putin.
If Russia’s military defense industry cannot continue to produce support for the front line, or if public opinion in Russia turns to support Putin, then Putin’s battle will be difficult to continue.
