The Russian economy was predicted to collapse soon after Western countries imposed unprecedented sanctions on Moscow because of the war it unleashed against Ukraine. But this week, Rosstat reported that in the first six months of 2022, the country's gross domestic product (GDP) fell by only 0.4% year-on-year, writes DW..

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According to official data, investment in fixed assets has increased, the ruble has appreciated markedly, and inflation, which has jumped since the start of the war, has slowed down.. On Tuesday, September 6, the head of the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation Maxim Reshetnikov said that the decline in GDP in 2022 is expected to be only 2.9%.. What is really going on with the Russian economy

As expected, oil and gas revenues, primarily from exports to the EU, continue to strengthen Russia's finances, even as states such as Germany and Italy reduce their dependence on Russian energy resources.. The Gazprom concern recently announced a record profit for the first half of the year - 2.5 trillion rubles (41.41 billion euros) according to international financial reporting standards.

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However, many experts have no doubts that Western sanctions have begun to work.. A study presented at the end of July by Yale University showed that imports to Russia have declined and its manufacturers are having difficulty obtaining components, including semiconductors and other high-tech parts..

Russia's position as a commodity exporter has been irretrievably lost, the authors of the report believe, as Moscow has been forced to sell more oil and gas to Asia at a deep discount..

One of the report's co-authors, Yale School of Management professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, opined that the Russian economy could " Other experts predict that a complete economic collapse in the Russian Federation, if it comes, will happen much later..

“In the long run, Russia will be nothing more than a gas station for China… But I don’t agree that its economy will collapse in two years,” Rolf Langhammer, former vice president of the Institute for World Economics in Kiel (IfW. According to him, Moscow spent years on the formation of the military budget.. According to international financial experts, the country is well prepared? to any weakening of economic ties with the West, Langhammer admits.

The IMF wrote last year that Russia was saving money after the 2014 conflict in eastern Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea and was ready for a war of attrition..

The expert also notes that Germany paid Russia 20 billion euros for energy imports in the first half of 2022, which is 50% more than in the same period last year: “Even if volumes fall, with a sharp rise in prices, we will still pay them.

But despite the fact that the situation in the Russian economy looks better than expected, the Kremlin stopped publishing a range of economic data shortly after Russian tanks entered Ukraine..

Bloomberg said the day before, citing an internal report prepared for the Russian government, that the country is preparing for a protracted recession.. Officials and experts working on the document presented three scenarios. Two of them show that the fall in GDP will accelerate in 2023, and the economy will return to 2021 levels only at the end of the decade or later..

Researchers from Yale University have reported that Russia used $600 billion of foreign exchange reserves, which served as an airbag for Putin.. According to them, 80 billion dollars have already been spent, and about 300 billion dollars have been frozen by the West..

According to Yale researchers, Russia has already spent $80 billion of its reserves.

Alexander Mikhailov, an economist at the University of Reading in the UK, believes that Putin will no longer have enough money for the war only if the West completely abandons Russian energy sources.. This, in his opinion, may take another two or three years.. And if the possibilities of the Russian authorities become limited, they can actually start printing money to cover the rapidly growing military spending.. However, this, according to Mikhailov, would be "

Many countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa did not impose sanctions against Russia, and some, on the contrary, benefited from the actions of the West. For example, reports this week suggest that China is quietly selling surplus Russian LNG back to Europe..

There are now active discussions about the need to introduce so-called secondary sanctions, according to which foreign citizens can be cut off from the international financial system if they do business with Russia.. Similar measures have been used successfully by the US against third countries to cut off Iran's oil exports and curb its nuclear ambitions..

Washington previously announced the possibility of imposing secondary sanctions. At the same time, experts urge patience: if these measures are taken now, the demand for oil and gas on the world market may grow even more, which will lead to a further increase in prices for them and an increase in the income of the Russian Federation..

In conclusion, the authors of the publication in DW could call on the Western world and warring Ukraine to be patient - the collapse of the Russian economy while maintaining sanctions is inevitable. That's just after how many months or years?