Sanctions imposed by Western countries since the Russian invasion of Ukraine have largely affected the country’s economy. What further isolate Vladimir Putin on the international scene.
A year after the start of its invasion of Ukraine, on February 24, 2022, Russia, through the voice of its president, still appears triumphant. Despite the losses on the ground, it intensifies its efforts and could soon launch a new offensive. Vladimir Putin even swore, Tuesday, February 21, during his state of the nation address, to continue “step by step, carefully and methodically” what the Russians call a “special operation” in Ukraine.
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The rhetoric, grandiloquent and bellicose, nevertheless hides the reality: twelve months after the start of what was to be a lightning invasion, the conflict had a negative impact on the Russian economy. At the same time, propaganda and censorship have intensified in the country, the last spaces of freedom shrinking like a trickle.
An economy slowed down by sanctions
During his speech on Tuesday, Vladimir Putin claimed to have “ensure economic stability” of his country despite the series of sanctions imposed by Western countries from February 24, 2022. Supposed to provoke “the economic collapse of Russia” according to comments made in March 2022 by the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, they have not brought the country to its knees. But its GDP contracted by 2.1% in 2022, according to the Russian statistics agency Rosstat*. “Ihe Russia was able to find the means to finance itselfsays to franceinfo Julien Vercueil, economist at the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations (Inalco). Ihe rise in energy prices has enabled it to continue to receive a considerable oil and gas rent from the rest of the world”.
However, inflation rose to 12% over one year in January 2023, according to the Russian Central Bank*, and had even peaked at 17.8% in April 2022. A record rise caused by “the sanctions, which created a shock of mistrust on the Russian currency, which resulted in an inflationary peak in the first weeks after February 24”explains Julien Vercueil.
“The State has, of course, supported certain categories of the population to limit the effects of inflation. But this one bites all the same on the purchasing power of the weakest.”
Julien Vercueil, economist at Inalcoat franceinfo
The reduction in exports of goods and technologies decreed by the European Union is also weighing on the Russians. “The price of cars has almost doubled and people can no longer find spare parts to repair them”reports Vera Grantseva, specialist in Russia and teacher at Sciences Po Paris. Sales of new cars also collapsed in 2022 (-59% over one year), according to the Association of European Businesses, which brings together manufacturers in the sector.
Because in addition to the sanctions taken by the States, more than 1,000 companies have suspended, at least temporarily, their activities in Russia since February 2022, according to a count by Yale University*. Thousands of jobs have therefore been eliminated, even if officially the unemployment rate was historically low in November 2022 (3.4%). “It should not be interpreted in Russia as it is in Europe. The working population is shrinking, which keeps the economy at near full employment, even when the economic situation destroys jobs”details Julien Vercueil. In other words, the figure is a sham: the country being faced with a demographic crisis, the number of active people on the labor market has been falling for several decades.
The population “in a bubble”, far from the conflict
Despite the economic crisis, the Russian population officially continues to support the invasion of Ukraine, despite the stalemate in the conflict. According to a survey conducted by the independent Russian institute Levada*, published on February 2, 75% of Russians were in favor of the “special operation”. The many deaths of soldiers, as well as the war crimes denounced by kyiv and NGOs, did not change public opinion. Logical, since“a very demagogic and aggressive propaganda” as well as a “almost total censorship” were implemented by the power, note the Russian sociologist Lev Goudkov with franceinfo.
The few independent media were thus banned in the months following the start of the conflict. It is now even impossible to speak of “war” in public, on pain of ending up in prison. It’s simple, “Russia has become another country from March 2022explains to franceinfo Vera Grantseva. It has become a totalitarian state, where any expression of freedom leads to prison”.
This tightening of state censorship had the effect of stifling any public will to resist. There were indeed some demonstrations at the announcement of the conflict, but sporadic and quickly stopped. Since March 2022, more than 19,000 people, according to the NGO OVD-info*, have been arrested for their opposition to the war. The number may seem low, but “it is enormous given the risks incurred” according to the expert, which explains that“about 15% of the population is actively against the war”.
Most Russians, however, keep war at a distance, “even if they look at it with fatalism”, adds the researcher. Blame it on years of restrictive policy which have ended up demobilizing citizens, explains to franceinfo Carole Grimaud, Russian geopolitics teacher : “The Russians are convinced (…) that their voice is useless. There is a civil society in Russia which has not been fully formed.” Cradled on propaganda and misinformation, a majority of Russians live in a bubble, far from conflict.
“Russians try to live normally by choosing a psychologically comfortable position, without talking about politics and without informing themselves too much about what is happening in Ukraine.”
Vera Grantseva, Russia specialistat franceinfo
A few upheavals, such as the public discontent of soldiers’ mothers or the flight of several thousand Russians abroad, could have suggested a reversal of the situation against the Russian president. “Soldiers’ mothers are asking for better equipment, better conditions, we are not in opposition to war”, thus explained Anna Colin Lebedev, lecturer in political science at Paris Nanterre, in the program “L’Evènement” on France 2, on February 16.
Could the consequences of economic sanctions push Russians into the streets? Not really, according to Vera Grantseva: “The population was already quite poor before the war, outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg, so it’s not a big change.” A nuanced conclusion with franceinfo by Mathieu Boulègue, researcher for the think tank Chatham House, who judges that the contract which “dissuaded Russians from taking an interest in politics” in exchange “of a better living environment no longer works, because the population does not live better”.
An accentuated ultra-conservative policy
Faced with this breach of the social contract, Vladimir Putin applied a strategy he is used to: depicting a beleaguered Russia having to defend its interests. “He describes the war as a conflict against the West in general”, explains Vera Grantseva. Added to this is a defense of conservative values, with regular attacks by the head of the Kremlin against homosexuality and trans people, associated in an outrageous way with pedophilia.
In October 2022, the country’s parliament decided to toughen the law against “LGBT propaganda” in force since 2013. A way of mobilizing the Russian population around a social project that goes against Western countries. And if this strategy is not new, it has accelerated since the beginning of the invasion. Result: if, “In the 1990s, Russians wanted to live like in the West, today this is no longer the case at all”, summarized Tuesday Tatiana Jean, the director of the Russia center of Ifri (French Institute of International Relations), invited by “C in the air” on France 5.
This stiffening of discourse has been accompanied by behind-the-scenes changes. “Before, for the elite, there was a little more freedom of opinion around Putin, it was especially important to be loyal. Now it is unthinkable not to be pro-warsummarizes Vera Grantseva. And if anyone questions Putin’s policy, he becomes a traitor.”. A situation that favors “the most radical advisers” in the entourage of the Head of State and has consequences for the country’s foreign policy.
A country isolated on the international scene
The chasm between Moscow, Europeans and the United States, which began to widen in 2014 with the invasion of Crimea, has deepened over the past year. On February 21, the Russian Parliament went so far as to vote the suspension of the New Start treaty, the last bilateral nuclear disarmament agreement linking Moscow to Washington.
Cut off from the West, the Kremlin has its gaze turned towards the East. It can always count on its Chinese ally, which refrained from directly condemning the war because “they share the same critical vision of the western and liberal world”, recalls Mathieu Boulègue. This proximity is explained above all by mutual economic interests.
“Russia needs China to save its economy, and China is taking advantage of this to buy up parts of the Russian economy at low cost.”
Mathieu Boulègue, associate researcher at the Chatham House think tankat franceinfo
Iran, Belarus, Kazakhstan… The Kremlin retains several allies against the West. But as always, “Vladimir Putin continues in his isolationist logic, insists Mathieu Boulègue. National interest first, international after”. As Tsar Alexander III said, “Russia has only two allies: its army and its fleet”.
For now, the Moscow army is holding out. Until when ? On the ground, 180,000 Russian soldiers have died or been injured since the start of the war, Norway estimated at the end of January. “Putin is counting, paradoxically, on the fact that European democracies will tire of war because it is expensive, because he cannot win by military means”points out Vera Grantseva. Evidence of repeated support for Ukraine from the European Union and the United States seems, for the moment, to prove him wrong.
* Links followed by an asterisk are in Russian or English.