"It's a strange conclusion to reach from such a narrow article that covered so little . The article has some truth in it but doesn't deal with the real problems for the russian economy at all .
One of the bigger issues for rusia is being banned from SWIFT .....if you wish to educate yourself on that ....
then there is the dependance on China meaning russia doesn't have bargaining power in the deal - they are a price taker ! And to avoid problems with sanctions usually somewhere around Malaysia there is swapping over of oil cargo ship to ship .
russia needs western chips and western components ..... the chips usually obtained via third countries and many of the components (but not by any means all ) but there is extra cost associated .
russia has a worker shortage and an inflation problem with official interest rates at 16% and are only financing the war by robbing a future fund and bty debt . russia has lost most of it's gas sales and most of their weapons sales and lately Ukraine are targetting refineries to reduce refined product oil sales . Then there was the demographic problem of an ageing population ......and that was prior to all their young men either leaving rusisa to avoid conscription or being killed in the war .
I've only scratched the surface here of russias problems but I can assure you ......russdia is NOT doing just fine at all .....they have real problems . The USSR's economy collapse was triggered by the war in Afghanistan and russia trying to match the west .....the war in Ukraine is much bigger than Afghansistan and putin failing to learn from history by trying to match .....even threaten ....the west .
russia is riding for a fall .....only a matter of how long . surprised with all the reading you have claimed to have done you aren't aware of all these things ."
In my opinion SWIFT is a non-issue for Russia. This would have been an issue if Russia was not sanctioned and allowed to trade with Western countries. Russia is moving away from using American currency and banking system. And rightly so.
I'm not so sure if Russia is reduced to being just a 'price taker' as you put it. They still have made more money than before the war.
Western chips? You are probably right but eventually China will be self-sufficient in chip manufacture. This would change overnight with annexation of Taiwan, which is the largest or one of the world's largest chip producers.
Russia's worker shortage and inflation problem. That worker shortage is not that bad. As to inflation rate, it is not much different to the EU/NATO's.
Of course Russia is experiencing difficulties, but they are not that serious overall.
Putin has never threatend the West. Show me one instance that he has.
What you are missing is this: Russian people have a higher treshold of $hit that they can take. Higher than people in this so called West. If push comes to shove, they will introduce all sorts of cuts but will not compromise on defending their country and fighting the war in Ukraine. Don't forget that Russians defeated Germany and won WW2.
