The Economist.

The Economist. I'm your host

Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events

shaping your world.

If you listen to some of Britain's shoutier politicians, you'd think the place was

being overrun with unskilled needy migrants. Ignore them. The truth is the country has almost accidentally

become really good at creating prosperous well-integrated immigrants.

And all the talk around electrification of road transport seems to focus on passenger cars.

But the vans and lorries end of the market is a huge source of emissions,

and electrifying it is going a lot slower than the world needs it to. First up though though Just after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Western leaders thought they could

put serious pressure on President Vladimir Putin.

Putin chose this war and now he and his country will bear the consequences.

The consequences were supposed to come after severe restrictions aimed to damage Russia's economy.

Today I'm authorizing additional strong sanctions and new limitations on what can be exported to Russia.

We have acted with the US, the EU, Japan and Canada to cut Russia's

Central Bank off from our markets. At first the Rubel plunged as these trade and

financial sanctions took hold and as Russia shifted to a war footing,

the spike in spending on soldiers' salaries and weaponry sparked eye-watering inflation.

But none of the economic indicators was flashing red for long. If anything,

the picture just keeps getting rosier.

Russia's economy has repeatedly defied the doomsayers.

Callum Williams is a senior economics writer for the economist.

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