Russian economy: satellite photos reveal failing health, Sweden says

• Sweden is using nighttime satellite photos to assess Russia’s economic health, its economy minister said.
• Elisabeth Svantesson said the inflation figures reported by the Russian central bank were an understatement.
• Images of Moscow before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine are significantly brighter, she said.

The decline in the health of the Russian economy is as clear as day – or night, a finance minister said Wednesday.

Elisabeth Svantesson, Sweden’s finance minister, said she and her officials were skeptical of how Russia’s official figures described its economy.

One measure they use instead, she said during a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, is to compare photos of Moscow at night.

The lighting, she said, was darker in 2023 than in 2021, indicating a capital and nation in trouble.

Business Insider found public photos showing the Moscow skyline in the years Svantesson mentioned. Here is one from March 2021:

And another from November 2023:

It is difficult to make a precise comparison: the time of day and cloud cover are different.

But in the 2023 image, the pools of light showing Moscow’s suburbs appear smaller and less frequent than in the pre-invasion image.

“It is very clear that the Russian economy is certainly not as strong as Putin wants us to believe,” Svantesson said.

She said inflation in Moscow was “much higher than public figures claim.” Russia’s most recent figure puts it at 9.5%, which Svantesson says is out of step with its main interest rate of 21%.

She also said the levels of capital leaving Russia suggested a struggling economy, as did space photos of Moscow.

“The situation in Moscow, for example, is much bleaker,” she said.

“They don’t use as much electricity,” said panel moderator Ravi Agrawal, editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy.

“No, no, no. It’s a lot darker,” Svantesson said.

Western countries have imposed draconian sanctions on Russia following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, primarily aimed at cutting off oil and gas exports critical to its economy.

The Kremlin claims to have resisted the worst potential effects of sanctions. Svantesson said the vision of a strong economy was a tactic to convince Ukraine and its allies that sanctions don’t work.

She concluded that “we don’t know” the true state of the Russian economy, “but what we do know is that its narrative and its truth are not true.”