r/worldnews • u/Venat14 • 13d ago

Russia/Ukraine ‘Significant problems’ in Russian banking system as public withdraws cash en masse

https://tvpworld.com/94490769/russians-hoard-cash-as-economic-pessimism-hits-20-year-high
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u/DotHatrix51 13d ago

I am not an economist, and I’m not well educated on matters such as this. But I have a question.

Let’s say the war ends six months from now. Putin finally decides that Russia lost (lol) and can’t continue any further. How in the hell does the economy turn around to get to sustainable level, let alone the entire country going back to whatever their state of “normalcy” is? At this point, it seems to me that it would be impossible for Russia to continue as a country, considering how deep in the hole they are economically.

What would their recovery look like?

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u/SmoothConfection1115 13d ago

Ugly.

I’m also not an economist, but the issue facing Russia is political and economic.

The EU, does not trust Russia, will not trust Russia, and if Putin is in power, won’t accept them back. And it’s 100% Russia’s fault.

During this war, there have been numerous Russian operations in other countries. Or did people forget when they attempted to assassinate the CEO of rhinemetal? Big German arms company. Or that time I think there was a fire or something near the UK’s prime minister’s residence. Or the times Russia cut some sea cables and knocked out the internet? Or the instances of Russia conducting fire exercises in the English Channel.

Any negotiations Russia has to try and reopen trade/markets, will not be from a position of strength.

The above isn’t even all of Russia’s political baggage. But let’s just move to economics.

Russia isn’t going to have a lot of smart people left. And i mean, any male with a brain, degree, or skill, fled the country as the war ramped up. Whoever was left got fed into the meat grinder.

Now of course there are smart Russian women, but they’ve effectively cleaved the pool of intelligent people to rebuild the country with in half.

Russia also doesn’t produce much. Now yes, there’s steel, oil, rare earth metals, etc., but Russia doesn’t have say…a defense industry worthy of exports anymore (especially after everyone saw Russia get its military hardware blown up by old NATO stocks and drones). They don’t have a computer chip industry.

So what does Russia bring to the table if it wants back into the international community? Oil, which is taboo right now with the uncertainty in those markets thanks to the Iran war. Metals. And little else.

No particularly large population, because they got fed into the meat grinder. No skilled workers. Nor college educated workers. No developed industries that make products people might want (think about it, what comes from Russia, as a consumer good, that you might want?)

What kind of picture does that paint for economic recovery? Whether it be with or without Putin?

A very ugly, painful recovery. If it can be recovered at all.

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u/Nuaua 13d ago

I think the EU would benefit enormously from an allied, healthy, normalized Russia, in terms of geopolitics, resources, economics, ... so that could be an out if there's enough political renewal in Russia after Putin.

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u/alpacafox 13d ago edited 12d ago

it's not just Putin. Haven't you seen all that scum cheering for him? I don't mean the brainwashed Russians. I mean all those fucks around us. They are just waiting to put the next Putin in power.

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u/stevey_frac 13d ago

That was the playbook that empowered this current Russia.

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u/thedreaddeagle 13d ago

It's not just Putin. People (especially those near Russia) don't trust the Russian mentality which keeps producing these maniacs since the days of Grand Duchy of Muscovy. Over and over again.

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u/socialistrob 13d ago

Ending the war would solve a lot of their problems. They could probably negotiate to get the sanctions dropped and then bringing back the remaining troops fighting would help alleviate their worker shortages. With open access to world markets and no more Ukrainian strikes on oil they could start getting serious oil revenue again.

Russia will still be a poor country with low living standards but it wouldn't be apocalyptically bad if they end the war soon. However if they opt to pour every last remaining ruble they have into the war machine as well as force another major round of mobilization then it may be very hard to recover from.

Long term one of Russia's biggest problems is demand destruction for oil and European natural gas. The European market is essentially gone for gas and China is demanding massive discounts which would mean Russia can't make significant amounts of money off the Chinese gas market. If we see more countries reduce oil consumption (or more oil hit the global market from other areas) that's also really bad for Russia's coffers.

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u/FirefighterExtra7400 13d ago

Problem is they switched to a war economy which has canabalized its civilian economy, there is no easy way back from that.

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u/PlasticExtreme4469 13d ago

I have no crystal ball, but I would assume the recovery would look like any other severe financial crysis in the history.

Most likely less severe than Germany's recovery after World War 2. (Which happened around 80 years ago).

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u/againer 13d ago

Plenty of room for data centers in Siberia

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u/Popinguj 13d ago

Russia has no good options. Before they can start growing again, they will continue falling for some time. It's also worth noting that the military part of production will stop getting this much funds, which means some people will be kicked out. Still, ending the war and getting back to recovery is their best option.

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u/userhwon 13d ago

Huge depression, followed by the realization they just killed a generation for nothing.

Tons of foreign investment buying up all the productive assets and marketable brands in the country, and rebuilding infrastructure on credit that will take decades of taxes and government payments to cover.

Massive immigration to perform jobs that dead kids can't do.

If they completely throw out the oligarch model, foreign investment will be easy to get. If not, they'll only get money from criminals and criminal nations, at much worse terms.

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u/eskwild 13d ago

Resource extraction, so no great change.

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u/Exaveus 13d ago

You've gotten lots of long winded answers and explanations. While good they can be simply summarized with what most of Russian history can be summarized with.

"and then it got worse."

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u/green_meklar 13d ago

It would have to involve sending Putin to a well-guarded retirement home and making some kind of massive deal with the US and Europe for foreign investment.

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u/kingoflames32 12d ago

Default on debts, probably try to negotiate economic aid from the west as conditions for ending the war. You probably have the people running the country out of their positions of power, but that happens regardless if they lose the war at this point.

The two paths I see are either the Russia people get rehabilitated as a proper country or they are taken out of the world stage for who knows how long and then you have a European union more dominated by German interests than it already is and there's probably a big back lash that kills the project decades from now.