Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
However, the numbers show another reality than what the Kremlin is trying to portray.
Writing for the Russian newspaper Kommersant in an article titled ‘The Impact of the Global Economy on International Security,’ Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov argued that Western sanctions have backfired spectacularly.
He pointed out that the European Union once stood as Russia’s top commercial partner, generating roughly 40 percent of its foreign trade. According to him, that relationship ended when Brussels walked away—a rupture that followed Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In his article, Lavrov blasted the decision. “Brussels decided to sever these ties, and did so in breach of EU member states’ obligations under their long-term contracts with our country, proudly declaring that the overriding priority for today’s European elites was to ‘punish’ Russia,” he wrote, according to Russian news agency TASS.
He also insisted that the penalties did little harm to his own country, arguing that “illegitimate sanctions have done less damage to our country than they have inflicted losses running into trillions on Europe, fueled inflation in the United States, and reduced living standards in many countries.”
Finding new buyers
Instead of crumbling under trade restrictions, Moscow claims it simply packed up its exports and headed east. The shift happened quickly.
Lavrov asserted that Russia avoided serious financial fallout, stressing, “We, for our part, have suffered no significant losses, having redirected our trade towards the markets of the Global Majority, which enthusiastically absorb 80% of Russian exports, including 70% in Asia.”
Yet European taps never ran completely dry. Despite intense diplomatic fallout and sweeping restrictions, Russian energy exports continued to flow quietly westward.
According to Lavrov, Moscow has delivered $320 billion worth of energy resources to European buyers since 2022. While independent energy monitors corroborate that broad cumulative total, the overwhelming majority of that revenue was transferred during the price spikes of 2022, before EU bans on seaborne crude and the dramatic curtailment of Russian pipeline gas took effect.
Describing Russia as a dependable partner that does not settle scores through trade, he maintained that deliveries of fuel, food, and fertilizer will continue.
What the numbers say
While headline growth numbers appear to support Lavrov’s narrative, deeper macroeconomic indicators from the past five years illustrate an economy experiencing structural distortion, acute resource cannibalization, and severe capacity constraints.
On paper, Russia defied early Western forecasts of a catastrophic double-digit collapse in 2022. After a pandemic rebound of 5.9% in 2021, Russian GDP contracted by just 1.2% to 2.1% in 2022 before expanding by 3.6% in 2023 and roughly 4% in 2024.
However, data from sources such as Rosstat, the Bank of Russia and international monitors show that this resilience was not driven by organic consumer demand or market competitiveness, but by massive state fiscal injections.
Defense and internal security spending surged to over 7%–8% of GDP. Military-linked manufacturing—such as weapons fabrication, optical devices, and finished metal goods—boomed, while civilian production and automotive sectors contracted or struggled with technology deficits.
As production capacity peaked and the state exhausted low-hanging stimulus options, economic momentum slowed dramatically, with both the International Monetary Fund and the Bank of Russia projecting growth to decelerate toward 0.5%–1.5%.
When looking at consumer prices, Lavrov’s assertion that inflation was an affliction visited upon the West clashes directly with Russia’s internal monetary reality.
Russian consumer price inflation climbed to nearly 12% in 2022 and remained persistently hot, hovering between 7% and 9.5% across 2023–2025.
To halt a run on the ruble and tame an overheated domestic market, Bank of Russia Governor Elvira Nabiullina repeatedly tightened monetary policy, pushing the benchmark key interest rate to a historic peak of 21.00%. While protecting the currency, these borrowing costs effectively froze non-subsidized commercial lending for standard civilian businesses—strains further compounded by an acute labor shortage and dwindling liquid fiscal buffers.
The timing of Lavrov’s piece is no coincidence. As Ukraine, Russia, and the U.S. meet in Abu Dhabi this week for a new round of trilateral talks to explore a diplomatic solution to the war, Moscow is keen to project an image of economic endurance, reinforcing the Kremlin’s longstanding narrative that a Russian victory remains inevitable despite mounting challenges.
