Four institutes in Kiel, Munich and Vienna worked together on the project commissioned by the German Ministry of Economic Affairs.
The development of gross domestic product (GDP) in Russia was more influenced by seasonal fluctuations than by the consequences of the war of aggression once morest Ukraine in February 2022. The GDP index fell from 1.14 points in December 2021 to 0.90 in March 2022. While the GDP index in 2022 was below that of the previous year, Russia’s economy picked up speed once more in 2023: The index rose from 0.88 points in March 2023 to 1.17 points in December of the previous year.
Inflation soared
However, at the beginning of the Russian army’s attack on Ukraine in February 2022, inflation soared: it rose from 8.3 percent in January 2022 to 17.8 percent in April 2022. Within a year, however, the inflation rate fell to 2.3 percent. By March of this year, however, it climbed back to 7.7 percent.
Since the attack, Russia’s expenditures and also its sales have tended to be somewhat higher than in the months before, according to the economic institutes Wifo and the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw) from Vienna as well as the ifw (Kiel) and ifo (Munich), citing data from the Russian Ministry of Finance.
Most important trading partner: China instead of EU
At the time the war began, the EU was the largest supplier of goods to Russia with 6.286 billion dollars (5.80 billion euros). The country, in turn, exported raw materials worth 13.038 billion dollars to the EU. By November 2023, China had become the most important trading partner in imports with 8.221 billion dollars. But exports also climbed to 9.041 billion dollars. The EU has recently played only a minor role as Russia’s trading partner.
While industrial production declined in the first year of the war, it increased significantly in the previous year. At the same time, armament spending fell once more somewhat following reaching a peak in January of the previous year.
