by Eric Zuesse, The Duran:
On February 6th, the neoconservative and deeply influential Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center headlined “Is Russia’s Economy Collapsing?” and summarized the opinions of ‘experts’, some of whom were saying yes, and some of whom were saying maybe, and the article closed by quoting two ‘experts’ who “disputed what they described as ‘claims of an imminent catastrophe’ for the Russian economy. ‘In our view, all things being equal, it’s unlikely that the economy will implode soon,’ they write. They have a point.” (That “They have a point” was meaningless mere pretense at having their own opinion, but their actual opinion was already manifestly clear from their selection of ‘experts’ whom they had been quoting, all of whom were parts of the U.S. imperial Establishment, which craves to take over — “regime-change” — Russia.
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
The U.S. regime spends 65% of the entire world’s military costs, and that’s a major reason why it does: throwing all the money they can, in order to ultimately defeat both Russia and China. It’s the mental disease of the people who control the U.S. Government. And it is extremely profitable for them, if, for example, they are investors in the most profitable segment of the U.S. stock market, which is armaments manufacturers.)
On February 7th, Russia itself issued, at the website of President Vladimir Putin, its economic statistics for the entire year of 2024: “Russia’s GDP has increased by 4.1 percent, which is 0.2 percent above the forecast and our expectations. The figure for December was 4.5 percent.”
Also there, was an update on Russia’s 2023 GDP growth-rate; it indicated that the originally reported figure had understated by .5% the growth-rate for 2023 (Russia’s Government has a record of generally revising figures upward; and so the norm is that their initial figures understate how well the economy is performing):
According to the update, our nominal GDP for 2024 is record high at 200 trillion rubles, primarily due to the vigorous growth of manufacturing. Overall, industrial production has grown by 4.6 percent, which is higher than all initial estimates.
Rosstat has also updated its data for the previous three years. According to it, GDP growth in 2023 was 0.5 percent higher than the initial estimate of 3.6 percent. The final figure for 2023 is 4.1 percent. The reason for the update was that we waited for annual financial statements from businesses, final information from economic sectors, and annual financial statements from budget funded enterprises.
The Trading Economics Website continues, as-of now, to show only the old figures.
However, Agence France Presse (AFP), which is the most trustworthy of all U.S.-empire mainstream news-reporting services, issued on February 7th a superb news-report:
“Putin hails Russia’s strong 2024 economic growth”
Moscow (AFP) – Russia reported strong economic growth for 2024 on Friday as record spending on the military offensive against Ukraine outweighed the impact of Western sanctions.
Issued on: 07/02/2025 – 13:41
Putin told his prime minister to get a grip on rising consumer prices © Gavriil Grigorov / POOL/AFP
Moscow’s massive ramp-up in outlays on soldiers and weapons has helped it defy predictions of a deep recession after it launched its military campaign in February 2022.
But fast growth has triggered high inflation and deep labour shortages at home, worrying the Kremlin.
The economy expanded by 4.1 percent in 2024, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin told Russian President Vladimir Putin in a televised meeting, citing data from the Rosstat statistics agency.
