and now let's narrow our focus and look at one SEO member in particular Russia the Russian economy was just given a stamp of approval by none other than the World Bank I'm not joking Russia the country embroiled in a seemingly endless war the country languishing under countless sanctions that very same Russia is beating all economic expectations so much so that it is is now once again a high income country this is according to the latest World Bank data it clearly shows that Russia is on the rise you know the last time Russia had a high income economy it was back in 2014 the year that invaded Ukraine's Crimea that is the year when the West started putting sanctions on Russia and Moscow felt the brunt they felt it for a while but over the last decade Russia has adapted it has found ways to bypass the constant sanctions and now it is back to being among the richest nations in the world so how exactly did this happen first let's look at what the World Bank is saying its list of high income Nations depends on one factor and that is gross national income per capita now gross national income or gni is like the GDP but there's a key difference between domestic and national GDP and gni GDP measures the economic growth within a country's Border in contrast gni also counts the income that is sent from overseas like remittances or money that a business makes overseas gni adds that that's the simplest way to differentiate between GDP and gni so the World Bank says that Russia's gni has been rising and in 2023 it entered the high income bracket it crossed $14,000 per capita so how did Moscow manage this in the middle of a war well the country has transformed itself it is now relying on a wartime economy the demand for weapons and military services is fueling economic growth think about Russian soldiers the ones on the front lines many are new recruits mobilized for the war they are being paid more than Russia's oil industry workers so many people from Russia's poorer regions have signed up to fight which means money has flowed to all corners of the country now you may wonder where is all this money coming from how is Russia generating ating the revenue to pay it soldiers isn't it supposed to be under crippling sanctions well Russia is under sanctions thousands of them but it is far from crippled the sanctions have hit Russia's trade its exports but just to the West the US UK and EU are the ones imposing the sanctions along with their friends like Canada Australia and Japan many of these countries were once export markets for Russia so Moscow has had to adapt and move away from these Western Nations it has created alternative trade opportunities with old allies like China North Korea and Iran and also with neutral countries like India the Gulf States and African nations and this rerouting of trade has helped Russia last year the trade rebounded by almost 7% and that was a major reason for Russia's income rank upgrade overall their gni per capita grew by more than 11% last year if you look at the basic GDP it grew by 3.6% last year Russia's GDP grew by 3.6% that's more than all the countries that have imposed sanctions on Moscow the US for instance grew by 2 and a half% the UK by am measly 0.1% even Australia grew by just 3% but Russia had 3.6 so clearly whatever Moscow is doing has been working there's one thing to note here every country that sanctioned Russia was already in the high income group it was the rich Nations trying to keep Russia down so Putin turned to the rest of the world to the global South and this is why Russia is defying all expectations across continents one powerful news source bringing you diverse perspectives on the is issues that [Music] matter we go beyond the boundaries to give you that little extra about every sporting moment so thank you for making first post 5 million strong we're counting on your support and you can trust us to bring you the news unfiltered and un [Music] [Music] world move across to the west east hello I'm Al coming to you from South Africa today we have a special with an report on India shifting nule for the first time since hello and welcome to First P America I'm Eric ham coming to you live from the nation's capital in Washington DC