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Comment by Beijinger | Hacker News Reader

"Especially if those countries are currently suffering from economic depression like China and Russia"

Dude, I don't know. "Despite the challenges posed by external pressure and earlier negative forecasts, Russia's GDP growth in 2023 is expected to be 3.5%,"

Most EU countries would be happy about such a growth. Russia has 100 times less debt than the US and an unemployment rate about 2.5% if I remember correctly.

I give you two more links, one by a US nobel Prize winner, another by a French guy who predicted the collapse of the UdSSR when he was a PhD student:

https://www.gulf-insider.com/robert-shiller-warns-of-catacly...

https://unherd.com/thepost/emmanuel-todd-world-war-iii-has-a...

I am not a Putin puppet. This guy may be a dog, but he has the luck of the devil. Russia may rise out of this mess as a power to be reckoned with.

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As a person who expected a 30-50% decline in Russian GDP when the sanctions were first announced, I’ve been very surprised at how resilient the Russian economy has been.

I’d love to read an analysis about why sanctions were so effective at harming the economies of countries like Venezuela & North Korea but so much weaker against Russia.

Here's a very good in depth article https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/91235.

"They essentially put the Russian economy into an artificial coma by raising the key rate to 20 percent. Additionally, they imposed temporary capital controls, compelled exporters to sell export revenues, and prohibited non-residents from leaving Russian markets....This combination of factors allowed the Russian economy to sustain itself in 2023 and gave time to Putin, the government, and Russian businesses to adjust their strategies, turning to new markets, mostly China and India."

However, it does look like Russia's strategy of supporting economy on strong oil sales will falter in 2024 and 2025.

"Indian purchases of Russian crude have fallen to an 11-month low as the price tag on the discounted oil rises...Sources at the Indian refineries told Reuters that the country is looking to Saudi oil partly because of problems with payments for Russian light sweet crude Sokol." https://www.newsweek.com/russia-oil-india-war-saudi-1860480

> why sanctions were so effective at harming the economies of countries like Venezuela & North Korea but so much weaker against Russia.

Not any in depth analysis, but I'm guessing:

1. Size of the economy (Russian economy is 3x Venezuela)

2. Diversity of the economy (Venezuela is primarily oil, Russia has a diverse industrial base, defence, agriculture etc)

3. Ties and trade with countries not participating in the sanctions (Russia trades with China, India and ME countries).

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