The Russian economy has been hit hard by the many Western sanctions that followed the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russia is now officially in recession, after a 4 percent drop in gross domestic product (GDP) in the third quarter. Imports have also fallen sharply.
When a talk show guest on Russian state television suggests that Russia should nationalize everything, the others in the panel note how dependent Russia is on Western imports.
The Russian high-speed train Sapsan (a model of the German company Siemens, ed.) will no longer run, a propagandist predicts. “What shall we drive? What are we going to call? What do we do? Did we take care of that?”, one wonders.
“Suppose we take the perpetrators to court,” it sounds. “But that won’t give us another Sapsan. Or an airplane. We don’t have a long-haul plane. Yes, everything we have is Western. We can now nationalize everything, but what do we do the day after? It is a simple question with no satisfactory answer.”
The main goods that Russia imports are vehicles, machinery, various parts and electrical equipment. In September, Russian imports fell by 66.6 percent in volume terms compared to the same month last year.