Russia didn't collapse after 2022 — and the Kremlin never stops saying so. But beneath the stocked supermarket shelves and the headline GDP figures, independent economists describe something slower and far more dangerous: a war machine consuming the very foundations it stands on.

In this episode of The Veritas Brief, we go beneath Russia's surface stability to the structural crisis its own budget documents reveal — the GDP illusion built almost entirely on war spending, a sovereign wealth fund nearly drained, an oil paradox where Russia sells more crude and earns less money, a labour shortage even Putin's closest allies now call a threat to national survival, and a deliberate blackout of official data.

This analysis draws entirely on independent institutional research: SIPRI, the Bank of Finland's Institute for Emerging Economies (BOFIT), Chatham House, the Kyiv School of Economics, and the IMF.

📖 Read the full investigation — every figure, source, and chart:https://www.veritaseuropaea.eu/2026/05/the-real-russian-economy-war-budgets-and-structural-decay/

🎙️ The Veritas Brief is a slow-journalism podcast on European and world affairs. No noise. No rush. Just context, evidence, and clear analysis.

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