Three myths about the Russia economic war

Has Moscow really overcome the sanctions regime? It is time to talk facts, not fiction.

Four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the devastation wrought by the Kremlin’s drones, infantry, missiles and armour continues to be matched by economic destruction. This is a cost borne mostly by Ukraine: The World Bank now estimates the cost of reconstruction, were the war to end today, is now $588bn, nearly three times the country’s GDP.

Simultaneous to the fighting in Ukraine itself, the economic war between Russia and the West rages on. But that battlefield has shifted far more sharply than the one in southern and eastern Ukraine has over the past year. With a war of attrition being waged on the ground, how the geo-economic battleground plays out from here may well prove more important in determining how the conflict is ultimately settled.