On 28 February 2022, four days after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the then French finance minister Bruno Le Maire declared: “We will bring the Russian economy to collapse.”
More than three years on, the war continues, but the Russian economy has held up while Europe’s economic strength is waning. This was reflected, for example, in France’s downgrade by the rating agency Fitch.
On paper, it seemed that Russia could not withstand NATO’s pressure in the long run. Military, economic and personnel strength clearly lies with NATO. The nominal GDP of the allied countries amounts to $54 trillion, while Russia’s GDP is only $2.4 trillion.
The same applies to human resources: while NATO countries have more than 980 million inhabitants, the Russian Federation has only 145 million. The West claimed that the Russian economy was weak because its product was comparable to Italy’s. But Italy would not survive a long and difficult war, and its economy would most likely collapse quickly.
Structural differences in the economies
Nominal GDP is not a decisive indicator. Russia has a larger share of industry and a smaller share of services (60 percent of GDP) than Italy (70–75 percent). Italian tourism directly accounts for six to seven percent and indirectly up to 12 percent of GDP; in Russia it is only 2.5 percent.
This difference shows the differing resilience of the economies. Although Italy and Russia have similar nominal GDPs, the Italian economy would be brought to its knees in the event of a war that would halt tourism. That has not happened in Russia.
The focus on industry, mining and processing of natural resources meant that the Russian economy returned to growth one year after the shock of 2022.
Another distorting factor in GDP is whether its growth is driven by debt or whether it reflects the economy’s real output. Italian public debt is over 135 percent of GDP, while Russian public debt amounts to only 15 to 20 percent of GDP.
The difference between the Russian and Western economies lies not only in the numbers but also in the approach. The land of the bear, having learned from the sovereign default experience of 1998 that led to high indebtedness, has built its economy to withstand various shocks.
One prerequisite for a robust economy is low debt, especially to foreign creditors. Western economies, while much larger, often stand on “clay feet.” They are more vulnerable to shocks and crises.
Antifragility in practice
To understand the difference between the Russian and the Western economy, it is helpful to use the concepts of fragility, robustness and antifragility as described by the economist Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Fragile companies or states are those that get into trouble at the slightest deviation. In the economy, indebtedness is often the cause of fragility. Robust companies, by contrast, weather crises thanks to their conservative approach, albeit at the cost of lower profits.
Taleb, however, shows that the best way to overcome this dilemma is an antifragile approach — a system that improves under pressure or shocks and benefits from disorder. This principle can be compared to strength training: the body is stressed, the muscles suffer microtears, but precisely through that they become stronger.
From this perspective, the Russian economy has an advantage, even though it faces the enormous superiority of Western economies. Sanctions on the import of French and Italian wine have pushed Russia to develop its own viticulture. Since the sanctions began, French and Italian winemakers have had trouble selling their production, which is further complicated by tariffs on the U.S. market that could partially replace the Russian market. European winemakers thus clearly demonstrate the vulnerability of the European economy.
Military strategy and economic resilience
In terms of antifragility we can go further. The only macroeconomic indicator where Russia has the edge is military spending. Russia spends more than seven percent of its GDP on defense (for 2025, 15.5 trillion rubles, roughly $160 billion, are planned). NATO countries, by contrast, often fail to meet their commitment to spend two percent of GDP on defense — Germany, for example, is only now approaching that threshold.
In absolute terms, however, NATO countries spend more: the United States spends more than $860 billion annually, which is more than five times the Russian military budget, and all NATO countries together more than $1.2 trillion. So how is it possible that the Russian army continues to fight despite having significantly fewer resources than the alliance?
The main difference lies in strategy and the orientation of economic processes. Russia pursues the exhaustion of Ukraine — that is, the gradual exploitation of its human and technological potential. It is not primarily about territorial gains but about inflicting greater losses on the enemy. This is achieved through enormous superiority in artillery, which requires a high consumption of ammunition.
The Russian economy and industry are subordinated to this goal — the production of as large quantities as possible of basic ammunition for guns. In this respect, Europe lags behind. The European and American defense industries focus on innovation and technological advancement. The manufacture of new technologically advanced weapons is time- and labor-intensive and is oriented more toward precision manufacturing than mass production. These technologically advanced weapons, however, are not ideal for classic conventional wars.
Here the weakness of the NATO approach becomes apparent. Western strategy and industrial policy have focused for decades on innovation, precision and high added value — precision-guided munitions, sensors, electronics and network capabilities.
In modern conflicts this is undoubtedly an advantage, but it does not meet the demands of intense artillery battles, where quantity matters: tons of steel, kilograms of explosives and hundreds of thousands of shells per month. This is precisely why Russia, although on paper the weaker opponent, has an advantage in the fight against NATO.
Author: Matěj Široký