I have been reading a thread with Russians (apparently who know their stuff) discussing whether production of *any* kind of car, even from 1950s, can resume there. The conclusion - no, not within several years, if at all.
Once this is all over, the only way Russia will be able to move out of the dark ages they've been thrust into will be to remove Putin and "swear" by some fashion to the west. Since Putin must know this, he's very dangerous right now.
Ah. Well, since we're not comparing dick sizes and seeing who said what, when, i've been saying the same thing the whole time.
Russia's current account surplus is soaring. The average current account surplus every April from 2007 - 2021 is +$6.7 bln In April 2022 it was +$37.6 bln.
Russia is a clear winner in the surge of the price of oil. I don't step away from that. What is not pretty but buried in their account surplus is that they would like to spend some of that surplus- most of it- to keep their economy and country going but due to the sanctions they have a limited number of places to go with their surplus. Also, not pretty as we go forward is that Russia has announced that it will no longer release central bank data on net capital outflows and other economic data- in other words, they will be releasing what looks good to them but withholding anything not so good. This is Russia. We expect no less.