I would guess the manpower drain of their costly Ukraine war has a larger effect than the sanctions. They are simply running out of people to work on stuff, throughout the country.
It’s more than that. Russia is in terminal decline. The last batch of properly educated engineers graduated from Soviet schools in the late 80s. They are now retiring which leaves a huge skills gap. In the past Russia used Western expertise todo the work of building and maintaining oil fields etc. but that is cut off now. Chinese engineers can fill some of the gaps but they don’t have expertise in oil fields and certain types of engineering to replace Western expertise.
The war in Ukraine has only accelerated this process.
I would guess the manpower drain of their costly Ukraine war has a larger effect than the sanctions. They are simply running out of people to work on stuff, throughout the country.
It’s more than that. Russia is in terminal decline. The last batch of properly educated engineers graduated from Soviet schools in the late 80s. They are now retiring which leaves a huge skills gap. In the past Russia used Western expertise todo the work of building and maintaining oil fields etc. but that is cut off now. Chinese engineers can fill some of the gaps but they don’t have expertise in oil fields and certain types of engineering to replace Western expertise.
The war in Ukraine has only accelerated this process.