Sweden’s finance minister has raised scepticism about Russia’s official figures describing the state of the Russian economy, arguing that the inflation figures from its central bank are an understatement.
Elisabeth Svantesson has, therefore, resorted to one clever way to compare the state of the country before and after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Swedish officials have compared satellite photos of Moscow by night, she explained, which shows that the lighting there was far darker in 2023 compared with 2021.
This, Ms Svantesson explained during a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, indicates that the capital, and the national as a whole, is in far greater trouble than Putin is letting on.
In the 2023 image, the pools of light showing Moscow’s suburbs appear smaller and less frequent than in the pre-invasion image.
While it is hard to make a precise comparison due to variations in the time of day and cloud cover, “It’s very clear that the Russian economy is definitely not as strong as Putin wants us to believe,” Ms Svantesson said.
“There is over Moscow, for example, a much darker picture,” she said.
“They’re not using as much electricity,” said the panel moderator, Ravi Agrawal, the editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy.
“No, no, no. It’s much darker,” Ms Svantesson added.
Moscow’s inflation was also “much higher than the public figure says,” she went on to claim. Russia’s most recent figure puts it at 9.5%, which Ms Svantesson said was out of joint with its primary interest rate of 21%.
Ms Svantesson also said levels of capital leaving Russia suggested a struggling economy.
In the wake of its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, western countries imposed crippling sanctions on Russia, mostly aimed at cutting off its oil and gas exports – which form a crucial part of Russia’s economy.
Earlier this month, footage circulated online which showed angry Russian shoppers blasting the rising cost of living, demonstrating a growing public resentment over the state of the economy.
In the viral clip, the narrator says: “Oh my God! Shaving foam costs 570 rubles [£4.39] already. What a horror. A couple of months ago, I bought it for only 250 rubles [£1.77].”
Asking the shopper if she believes the prices will go down next year, she replies: “No. Have they ever gone down? Next year will be the year of default.”
The Kremlin has fervently said it has withstood the worst potential effects of the sanctions. However, Ms Svantesson has argued that this vision of a strong economy was a tactic to convince Ukraine and its allies that the sanctions have not worked.
She concluded that “we don’t know” the true state of Russia’s economy, “but what we know is that his narrative and his truth is not true.”
