Etheryte
7 months ago
Articles like these are a good example that while Russia often tries to downplay or outright deny the sanctions have any effect on them, they do work. This is only one specific example with a specific plane model, but their whole airline industry is facing similar issues on many fronts. Many repairs that used to be business as usual are now either prohibitively expensive or downright impossible due to the sanctions. Similar problems exist across a wide range of industries in Russia. There's a reason why they closed off their stock market, they can't afford to let the full impact be visible.
ethbr1
7 months ago
The point of modern sanctions is not that it makes import impossible (look at Russian circumvention for dual-use military technologies), but that it makes import at whole-economy scale more expensive and unreliable.
And ultimately that's what imposes economic costs.
It'll be curious how much of the gap is filled by substitute Chinese goods. (E.g. the domestic CFM-alternative engine projects [0])
With the wrinkle that Russia and China are united by their geopolitical opponents more than their friendship, and Xi doesn't seem thrilled about shackling the Chinese economy to the consequences of Russian war.
sedan_baklazhan
7 months ago
Russia is a civilian aircraft producer. There's no need for Chinese airplanes (which they have troubles with).
JumpCrisscross
7 months ago
> Russia is a civilian aircraft producer
Massive difference between airliners and aircraft. Russia has not shown itself capable of mass manufacturing airliners. (Or even advanced aircraft for that matter.)
That said, as a petro state, they’re fine running inefficient engines across their skies.
sedan_baklazhan
7 months ago
Are you serious? Look up SSJ-100 production numbers.
JumpCrisscross
7 months ago
> Look up SSJ-100 production numbers
Now look at them post sanctions.
The SSJ-100 contains far more important systems (not parts) [1] than e.g. Embraer’s regional jets. It was designed with consultation from Boeing, including throughout manufacturing. Russia’s indigenous jets are terrible, and there is no reason to expect them to improve, they can’t compete against the Chinese for the anti-Western market.
To be fair to Sukhoi, this is how Boeing builds planes. If America were sanctioned by its allies, I’d similarly argue that Boeing, too, is incapable of mass manufacturing airliners.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20190402154855/https://www.uacru...
protomolecule
7 months ago
>The SSJ-100 contains far more important systems (not parts) than e.g. Embraer’s regional jets
Embraer jets all use Pratt & Whitney engines which is the hardest part to replace.
> they can’t compete against the Chinese for the anti-Western market.
All Chinese jet airplanes use Western engines and other systems[0][1]. China can't sell them on the anti-Western market just like Russia wasn't allowed to sell Tu-204SM with PS-90A2 engines co-developed with Pratt & Whitney[2].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comac_C909
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comac_C919
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviadvigatel_PS-90#PS-90A2
thodin
7 months ago
Russia can't make more SSJ-100. End of story.
cooljacob204
7 months ago
Compared to other airliners those production number are small.
sedan_baklazhan
7 months ago
Russia only needs to supply herself, not other markerts. Which manufacturers do you compare with?
thodin
7 months ago
Russia officially built only one SSJ in 2024 – RA-89192. But in fact it was originally built in 2022 and it is probably the last SSJ-100 ever produced.
protomolecule
7 months ago
>last SSJ-100 ever produced
Yes, of course. The version of SSJ-100 with Russian-made engines and other systems is called SJ-100.
[0] https://www.uacrussia.ru/ru/aircraft/lineup/civil/superjet-1...
thodin
7 months ago
There is no such thing as an SSJ-100 with Russian-made engines, period. Airlines cannot buy them, and you cannot fly them. Even the MC-21 is slightly more realistic, but it is also not available to any airline.
We have been hearing this never-ending story of "aircraft will be available in 2 years" for a very long time. :)
protomolecule
7 months ago
SJ-100 with PD-8 already flew in 2023[0], after a year of fixing engine problems, it is about to fly again.
untech
7 months ago
[flagged]
sedan_baklazhan
7 months ago
Dear untech, 1. I am both a Russian and a Russian citizen. 2. I comment a lot on Russia-related topics because I'm a Russian and I know quite a lot about Russia. 3. I'm also a software developer so I enjoy reading most HackerNews content. 4. Talking with people and learning their opinions seems worthwile to me. It's not really a waste of time.
JumpCrisscross
7 months ago
For what it's worth, I appreciate your comments and find them civil and informative. (American. Comment a lot because Ukraine is my pet war.)
untech
7 months ago
What is a pet war?
JumpCrisscross
7 months ago
> What is a pet war?
A foreign conflict I’ve adopted for personal interest and to be opinionated about, but over which I have little to no influence or ground truth. The popular ones in America being Ukraine and Gaza. (The unpopular ones: the wars in Sudan, Ethiopia and Burma.)
JumpCrisscross
7 months ago
“Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.”
untech
7 months ago
I don’t think they are shilling, but they look a bit obsessed with the topic. I wanted to point out to them how this looks from the outside.
protomolecule
7 months ago
[flagged]
ivan_gammel
7 months ago
No, Russia doesn’t. Those engines are tested, i.e. still in development, not in serial manufacturing. The first shipments were pushed back by 3 years and the planned production volume reduced recently. There’s still risk that this is going to happen again, so we won’t see first commercial flights on those engines for several years. And existing fleet degrades faster.
protomolecule
7 months ago
You've missed the context: the comment I was replying to suggests using Chinese engine in about the same stage of development.
sedan_baklazhan
7 months ago
>There's a reason why they closed off their stock market That's a completely false information. The stock market isn't closed.
Etheryte
7 months ago
Foreigners are not allowed to sell on the Russian stock market from the Russian side [0] and they're generally not allowed to buy from the sanctions side. This means that as a foreign investor you're barred from trading in any useful meaning of the word. Buy and hold in the hopes that you might be able to maybe some day sell, whether that's in a year, ten years, or a hundred, is not really a viable strategy. That's also the reason why investment and asset management companies of all sizes are trying to find their exits from the Russian market, see for example Van Eck [1], just the latest addition in a long line of many:
> Regulatory and market conditions do not currently permit the Funds to conduct transactions in the local Russian market.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/limited-russian-sto...
[1] https://www.vaneck.com/us/en/blogs/emerging-markets-equity/r...
dcrazy
7 months ago
The post you are quoting did not say they closed the stock market. They said they “closed off” the stock market, which implies denying access to certain classes of investors.
That said, I’m not finding anything about Russia prohibiting foreign investment, but I am finding a lot about sanctions prohibiting dollar and Euro investment in Russia.
sedan_baklazhan
7 months ago
I have an investor account and I know for sure the stock market isn't closed.
jhugo
7 months ago
“Closed off” means “restricted access to”. It doesn’t mean “closed”. I have no idea what restrictions the parent was referring to, but they weren’t saying that the stock market shut down.
the_mitsuhiko
7 months ago
As a "westerner" you will need a Russian residence permit I think to trade. I at least would not know how you can actually buy something in MOEX as someone based in Europe.
sedan_baklazhan
7 months ago
Perhaps you're right. English isn't my native language - thanks for explaining.
reducesuffering
7 months ago
The Russian Ruble is also starting to do very bad again:
hammock
7 months ago
Good point. Worth noting that the Russian newspaper reporting this, Kommersant, is the most liberal/independent of the three business dailies in the country and is sort of the Babylon Bee of Russia, if the BB wasn’t satire: it spells its name with pre-Revolution Cyrillic and uses creative neologisms, wordplay, metaphors, and legally imposed euphemisms in its stories to maintain a degree of independence in periods of severe state censorship
cen4
7 months ago
The sanctions don't have a goal. So anyone can say anything. Besides Air Transport is a small ass part of GDP. Their MIL complex is on over drive, more than compensating for whatever hits the other sectors are taking. Their GDP is growing faster that all other major Western Economies. The US & EU are not serious about winning this war, mostly because they don't have confidence in themselves that they can.
dismalaf
7 months ago
> Their GDP is growing faster that all other major Western Economies
Growth that depends entirely on government spending can only last so long... First you blow all your reserves, then if/when you start printing money and hyperinflation kicks in even if the nominal GDP in the domestic currency appears to be rising, real GDP falls fast.
Because Russia's essentially a petro-state, they had sizable cash reserves with which to prop up their economy. Now you can see with the price of the Ruble that they've run out of the will to prop it up using foreign reserves (probably running low on foreign currency) and most estimates of their economic growth is that it'll stall or they'll see a recession for 2024 and beyond.
> The US & EU are not serious about winning this war, mostly because they don't have confidence in themselves that they can.
You're right that the west isn't serious. It's not that they don't think we can, it's that they're afraid the slightest hit to our living standards will erode support. While they might be right, we're sleepwalking into an even worse scenario...
ivan_gammel
7 months ago
>Now you can see with the price of the Ruble that they've run out of the will to prop it up using foreign reserves (probably running low on foreign currency)
It’s not that simple. I don’t think Russia is low on foreign currencies. Due to sanctions and effects of war spending Russian economy doesn’t behave as a normal one. Recession is going to happen, sure, because the current high demand on domestic market is matched by credit-driven growth of supply. As soon as war spending drops, demand weakens and interest rate drops, but some of the businesses which play the chicken game with central bank will have problems. So yes, recession is going to happen. But they will not burn foreign reserves to zero, simply because some of them are frozen and some are in rupees and yuan, which are not easily convertible.
aguaviva
7 months ago
I don’t think Russia is low on foreign currencies.
It's definitely "low" on the $327B or so in its sovereign foreign assets that were seized Brussels shortly after the 2022 invasion -- apparently about half its total (of $600+).
The seizure obviously didn't kill the economy, but it would be surprising if it didn't set off a chain of effects within the Russian economy. We may be seeing that now in the form of the precipitous rise in the benchmark interest (to 21 percent).
ivan_gammel
7 months ago
The rise of the interest rates is not related to seizure of foreign assets.
It’s macroeconomic basics: government is spending a lot, domestic demand increases and doesn’t match the supply, which cannot be balanced by imports (which would require spending of foreign reserves). The economy is gradually overheating, inflation is rising, so the central bank attempts to control it, because its only target is the inflation. That’s as simple as that.
aguaviva
7 months ago
So to the extent the sanctions (of all types) are having any kind of effect on the Russian economy -- how would you best characterize it?
ivan_gammel
7 months ago
1. Sanctions on financial sector and airlines are annoying at most and hit the most more liberal Russian middle class and elites, which has had enough in 2012 and would not dare to oppose Putin directly today (so, it's a reason to go to therapy or have a vacation in Asia rather than going to the streets). Russian financial authorities are one of the most competent in the world and it shows, the system is relatively stable and will go through the coming recession with minimal damage (not the first time).
2. Some manufacturing sectors of Russian economy do have problems, which do not hinder manufacturing capacity today but will have more long term effects. Chances are high that this will simply help China to become more competitive at the cost of Western producers of manufacturing equipment and electronics. They do not want confrontation with the West, but will use any opportunity to replace Western companies. Civilian aircraft production is going to be even more localized without the Western engines and may gradually catch up with the demand.
3. Sanctions on oil and gas trade simply do not work and are bigger pain for Europe than for Russia. You cannot cut off major supplier of hydrocarbons without full support of all the biggest consumers. It still goes on, just in other currencies (which may have negative long term impact on use of USD in international trade). Yes, Russian producers do suffer, but nothing really bad is going to happen to them.
4. Unofficial "Cancel culture" sanctions (Western brands pulling off Russia) have negative effect mostly on the Western businesses which may have lost one of their biggest customers, like some German companies. The assets are simply being taken over and they continue to contribute to Russian economy (and paying taxes) after some delay, switching to Chinese supply chain (e.g. car production). At best they will be paying double or triple price to return to the market later, at worst they will get more competition. It will be interesting though to see, how competition in digital services will evolve. For example, YouTube cannot be replaced by anything even when it does not sell ads or premium accounts in Russia.
To summarize, sanctions did not work. They did not and could not stop the war. The most damage Russia has inflicted on itself: excessive military spending increased inflation, from which civil servants and pensioners are going to suffer the most. Attempt to control it is going to result in major recession soon. Besides, massive emigration wave has put a lot of pressure on the job market and immigration from Central Asia can no longer mitigate it, because the attempt to recruit more soldiers from immigrants has scared many of them.
I still believe that the best strategy for the West should have been avoidance and deescalation, and then, when all opportunities were missed and the war started, US and UK should have deployed their military in Ukraine honoring the spirit of Budapest agreements. It was not wise for Ukrainian leadership to choose a side and push for NATO membership, but it was stupid for USA to leave the doors open, promise things that led to more escalation and then let the country slowly burn. This war is a major failure of Western diplomacy and lack of adequate strategy in Eastern Europe.
aguaviva
7 months ago
To summarize, sanctions did not work. They did not and could not stop the war.
Well it's pretty clear the sanctions were never intended, by themselves, to stop the war. But it's not like the Western nations really had any other choice.
Fundamentally, sanctions are more about framing -- making it clear to Russia's regime that it simply won't be possible to continue doing "business with usual" with the West after it crossed the line that did.
I agree with you that Western pre-war policy was largely a failure, and certain things should have been done differently. But now that Russia's regime took the action that it did --- it must be opposed, and in any case not simply "greenlighted". Which a refusal to impose sanctions (or substantially help Ukraine in its defense) would have amounted to.
dismalaf
7 months ago
> But they will not burn foreign reserves to zero
No, of course not. But it's clear they've burned through enough that they've given up trying to prop up the Ruble, as they did in 2022.
ivan_gammel
7 months ago
How is it clear? Their foreign currency reserves decreased just by 15% since December 2021 and their total reserves actually increased. Yes, some of that huge pile of money was frozen, but it’s nowhere close to “giving up” trying. So no, you are wrong, they did not give up, they simply did not have intention to keep ruble strong. The central bank intervenes to prevent high volatility, but that’s it, since 2015 they focus only on inflation.
dismalaf
7 months ago
It's clear based on the exchange rate. You absolutely can't trust whatever data they put out there, but you can see based on their behaviour. I mean, they're literally asking North Korea and Iran for help, trading oil and gas directly...
There's no advantage for them to have the Ruble so weak because they absolutely want to import Chinese and Western products, namely technology, to fund their war machine. Even against the Yuan, the value of the Ruble has nearly halved since June 2022. That's not good for a nation that needs to import things...
ivan_gammel
7 months ago
You make wrong assumptions about the exchange rate. I suggest you learn more about Russian economy, rather than speculate.
The fact is, they do not target exchange rates in their policy, only inflation. Their trade balance with China is positive (unlike USA), so yuan reserves are growing and they have no problem to buy Chinese goods. The weakness of ruble has nothing to do with it.
thodin
7 months ago
The exchange rate is now directly controlled by the Central bank. Trade with China is very problematic - sometimes it takes several months to complete a single transaction.
ivan_gammel
7 months ago
> The exchange rate is now directly controlled by the Central bank.
This is false. I don’t know where you have got this, when all information is public and easily available. Here’s how the official exchange rate us determined:
https://cbr.ru/Content/Document/File/162004/metod_6290-u.pdf
They just collect the data on OTC transactions from banks. The only way for Russian central bank to influence the exchange rate is to sell/buy and they do it only to stabilize the market when volatility is high. They do not have exchange rate targets and do not enforce specific rates in transactions.
layer8
7 months ago
I don’t think it’s lack of confidence. Rather, the public wouldn’t support the costs and sacrifices necessary.
JumpCrisscross
7 months ago
> sanctions don't have a goal
You missed the goal of sanctions on Russia?
> MIL complex is on over drive
This is correct. The Russian economy is doing fine.
> mostly because they don't have confidence in themselves that they can
This is wrong. It’s a resource-commitment problem. Not one of capabilities or confidence.
the_mitsuhiko
7 months ago
> This is correct. The Russian economy is doing fine.
The Russian economy is doing "mixed". It's a war economy which can be propped up for quite a while but it has significant structural issues that will take years to repair. The country won't fail, but it will further struggle because of the decisions made my leadership.
I find this general attitude of "Russia has no issues" that are going around on the internet quite confusing if pretty much every economic indicator says otherwise. Let alone the fact that a meaningful part of the working population is fighting or left the country rather than engaging in the economy.
JumpCrisscross
7 months ago
> country won't fail, but it will further struggle because of the decisions made my leadership
It’s removing itself as a conventional threat to Europe for generations to come. And as much as Beijing is a rival to Washington, they’re rational in a way Moscow is not. Russia as a Chinese suzerainty is probably a better world configuration than Russia as a sovereign regional power.
> find this general attitude of "Russia has no issues" that are going around on the internet quite confusing if pretty much every economic indicator says otherwise
The sanctions’ goal was to cripple the Russian economy in a militarily-relevant way. On this they failed and that has been widely discussed. Folks might be extrapolating that discussion inappropriately.
ivan_gammel
7 months ago
> It’s removing itself as a conventional threat to Europe for generations to come
How? Surely not in military sense. If anything, they gained experience of modern drone warfare and tested and refined their technology.
throwaway290
7 months ago
Taking into account relative sizes of the invaded and invading country, Russian government showed themselves a complete laughing stock. And this is without involvement of any NATO troops by the way.
Any limited success they had before was in what can't be called a conventional confrontation, like separatist movements.
analognoise
7 months ago
What? The EU and US aren’t in the war at all. We’re almost 3 years into Russia being unable to conquer a country 1/3 their size right on their border.
On top of all the damage done to them, and their advanced EW capabilities that have been captured and sent for analysis in the US, and exact knowledge of things like Kinzhal, the lost flag ships and submarine, the modern sea drones - this war is a disaster for Russia.
The US and EU aren’t even involved and Ukraine is holding its ground. Russia is doing so poorly that they’re not even considered a threat anymore in the West.
Their “GDP” numbers belie systemic economic weaknesses that show up when they have to BARTER for food. That’s how worthless their currency is.
Russia is basically completely pathetic at this point - they can terrorize countries that share a land border with them but can’t project power even past Ukraine.
They had to import starving North Koreans with antique shells and Iranian RC toys. Some superpower.
The US and EU don’t care about the war in the same way someone with a Ferrari doesn’t have to race someone with a Honda Civic - because they’re not a threat. Let the person in the Honda rev their engine and scream that they’d win - they’re just stupid. They look stupid.
They’ve lost what, 500k soldiers? They’re so much weaker than the Soviet Union it’s laughable.
The rest of the world disrespects them so much that they had $300B worth of Russian assets outside their country - and they were all seized. That was half their famed “sanction proofing”! What are they going to do about it? Nothing.
They have “hot” GDP based on faux demand for wartime goods - as they trade Rubles for oranges because nobody wants their currency. Does that sound viable to you? Laughable.
user
7 months ago