Is the Ukraine war boosting or damaging the Russian economy?

theguardian.com:

T his week the International Monetary Fund will assess how well Russia’s economy has held up during the Ukraine war and is expected to estimate it had a mild downturn last year, faces a modest rebound this year and will enjoy a healthy level of growth in 2024.

This seems to contradict the warning from shortly after the invasion that the country faced a contraction of up to 15% and last month’s prediction from the oligarch Oleg Deripaska that international sanctions would drain the Kremlin’s finances by next year.

However, some experts have criticised the IMF’s focus on traditional economic measures such as gross domestic product (GDP) as inappropriate given there is a war on – meaning the figure is inflated by soaring military spending. An analysis from the Centre for Policy Research (CEPR) network of academics has found that when this is stripped out last year’s recession was twice as bad as official figures suggest.

Russia’s GDP dropped in 2022, but not by as much as many expected. In February the International Monetary Fund said it expected final figures to show a mild 2% fall in GDP in 2022, followed by a 0.3% rise in 2023 before a rebound to almost 2% in 2024, sending a message that the economy of 145 million people is robust and able to weather the extra costs of war.

However, this assessment includes military spending – which has soared since the invasion began, particularly after the introduction of conscription for 120,000 civilians last year. The economist Mikhail Mamonov, a sanctions expert based at Princeton and a member of the CEPR, warns against using GDP as a guide to any country directly involved in a war, and especially Russia where the official figures are likely to be massaged. Spending in shops has