Feb. 24, 2024, marks the second anniversary of the internationally condemned Russian Invasion of Ukraine. Since then, there have been more than 10,000 Ukrainian civilians killed, and around 20,000 injured, according to the United Nations. Almost two years into the intense fighting and after countless Russian atrocities, even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says that "no one knows" when the war will end, and many geopolitical commentators have observed that the conflict has now reached a stalemate.
This present impasse benefits the Russian Federation, as its population is almost four times larger than Ukraine's, and its Gross Domestic Product is around 10 times larger than before the war. While many Western nations condemned Russia's invasion and imposed harsh economic sanctions on it, these sanctions have failed to cripple the Russian economy. Several companies have been slow to divest from the Russian market, and nations whose interests are aligned against the West have ignored the sanctions and continued trade with Russia, with some even aiding it militarily. Moscow has now transitioned into a wartime economy, having grown more than 5% in the third quarter of 2023.
