Russia facing 'economic oblivion' in its financial war with West, report claims

London: Russia is losing the economic war with the West and its economy is in catastrophic and irrevocable decline even as it cuts off the gas supply to Europe, a new report has claimed.

As panic spreads across Europe over the prospect of gas rationing and spiralling energy prices, it is in fact Russia which is on the ropes, with business in retreat and sanctions catastrophically crippling their economy, the Daily Mail reported.

And while Russian President Vladimir Putin causes panic in European governments by throttling gas supplies, the strategy is unsustainable as he burns through reserves and his budget goes into deficit.

This is the verdict from a Yale-authored report that has looked beyond the Kremlin's cherry-picked economic figures to access private Russian language and other unconventional data sources, Daily Mail reported.

The report looked at high frequency consumer data, cross-channel checks, releases from Russia's international trade partners and mining of complex shipping data to produce an economic analysis measuring the state of Putin's economy and what the future might have in store for it.

And the picture it paints is a grim one for the Russian dictator. Ever since his February 24 invasion of Ukraine, he has been locked in an economic war with the West that is being fought across sanctions, trade and energy supplies.

While some analysts have decried the resilience of the Russian economy in the face of Western efforts to cripple it, experts at the Yale School of Management have concluded that 'there is no path out of economic oblivion for Russia', Daily Mail reported.

"Defeatist headlines arguing that Russia's economy has bounced back are simply not factual," the report says.

"The facts are that, by any metric and on any level, the Russian economy is reeling, and now is not the time to step on the brakes."

Every single sector of the Russian economy is slammed — both its imports and its exports are down.

And Putin has been burning through his once-hefty rainy day funds that he had set aside — precisely in the event of a confrontation with the West — in an unsustainable effort to paper over the cracks.

The government budget is in deficit for the first time in years, and this in spite of sky high energy prices that Putin has been manipulating by throttling gas supplies to Europe. 

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