NYT - Russia - Ukraine War Briefing August 12, 2022 -Russia's eonomy shrinks

 

August 12, 2022

By Yana Dlugy

Hello. This is your Russia-Ukraine War Briefing, a weeknight guide to the latest news and analysis about the conflict.

Dozens of rockets slammed into towns across the river from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, wounding three people, Ukrainian officials said. The first ship chartered to carry Ukrainian grain to famine-stricken countries in Africa was due to arrive at a Black Sea port for loading, U.N. officials said. Follow our live updates. Track the invasion with our maps.

The contraction of Russia’s economy in the second quarter was not as severe as some expected it to be.Alexander Zemlianichenko/Associated Press

Russia’s economy shrinks

In the first snapshot to fully capture the costs of the war for Russia, data released today showed that the gross domestic product fell 4 percent from April to June, compared with a year earlier.

The drop is the start of what analysts say will be a downturn that will last several years, my colleagues Eshe Nelson and Patricia Cohen report.

Despite imports drying up and sanctions blocking financial transactions to such an extent that the country was forced to default on its foreign debt, the fall in G.D.P. was not as severe as some had predicted.

This was in part because state coffers were flush with energy revenue as prices rose because of the war. But the economic toll is expected to grow heavier with time as Western nations turn away from Russian oil and gas, critical sources of export revenue.

Western sanctions sparked an exodus of hundreds of Western companies, cut off Russia from about half of its $600 billion in foreign currency and gold reserves and imposed strict restrictions on dealings with Russian banks.

Russia moved quickly in the days after the invasion to mitigate the impact of sanctions and was able, to some extent, to soften the blow. Still, Russia’s central back said today that it expected the economy to have a deeper contraction next year and not return to growth until 2025.

The outlook for the coming months looks bleak. Russian companies will need to rearrange their supply chains as imports seize up and businesses have trouble getting replacement parts for Western-made machines.

Prospects for the energy sector are also dimming. Oil output will fall further next year, and Russia will have to find buyers for about 20 percent of its oil.

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Russia’s losses in the war have been staggering, according to the U.S.Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times

Russia’s losses

Russia has not released a death toll from the mysterious blasts this week at its air base in Crimea, but a senior Ukrainian official said today that some 60 pilots and technicians had been killed and 100 wounded in the explosions.

Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the minister of internal affairs, said the conclusion was based on video evidence and intelligence data but offered no details.

Russia’s leadership, which expected a quick victorious war when it invaded in February, has given questionable accounts about military losses in the conflict, now in its sixth month.

When the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, the Moskva, sunk in April, U.S. intelligence confirmed that two Ukrainian missiles had struck the vessel, killing an unknown number of sailors. But Russia claimed that an accidental fire caused the sinking, which was the most significant loss for any navy in 40 years.

The Kremlin’s tendency to underestimate battlefield losses is a deeply ingrained behavior that stretches back decades.

For example, the official military toll for Russia’s disastrous first war in Chechnya in the 1990s is nearly 6,000. Most independent estimates put the real figure at perhaps twice that or more.

Russia has not released figures about the number of casualties it has suffered in Ukraine since March, when it said that 1,351 soldiers had been killed. The U.S. estimate at the time was closer to 5,000.

Likewise, Ukraine has not disclosed an official toll. The government said that between 100 and 200 of its troops were being killed each day at the height of the battle for Sievierodonetsk in June.

According to U.S. intelligence, Russia’s losses have been staggering, with some 20,000 troops dead, my colleague Helene Cooper reports.

Of that number, 5,000 are believed to be mercenaries from the Wagner Group.

Some comparisons to put the figure in perspective:

Soviet casualties from a nine-year campaign in Afghanistan in the 1980s stood at some 15,000. The Kremlin only began releasing official casualty figures once troops began returning home in the final year of the conflict.

The U.S. lost 2,400 military personnel in the 20-year occupation of Afghanistan, its longest war. More than 58,300 died during the 10 years of the Vietnam War.

For Russia, which has already committed nearly 85 percent of its fielded army to the war, drawing on troops from the Far East and around the world, the high casualties mean slower progress.

“The Russian Army is seriously depleted,” said Seth G. Jones, the director of the international security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “That has implications on their ability to fight an effective ground campaign in Ukraine.”