As the ruble crumbles, are the wheels falling off the Russian economy? AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin The daily life of ordinary Russians – not just the country’s political elite or super rich oligarchs – is already being impacted by economic measures imposed by the international community in response to the invasion of Ukraine. As a scholar… Continue reading Ordinary Russians are already feeling the economic pain of sanctions over Ukraine invasion
Listening to music can be a joyful experience. Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com. Is it possible to listen to too much music each day? – Emma, age… Continue reading Is it possible to listen to too much music each day?
Thanks to the high prices they command, avocados are sometimes referred to as ‘green gold.’ Jose Castanares/AFP via Getty Images To the relief of avocado lovers from coast to coast, the recent drama between the United States and Mexico was fleeting. The U.S. Department of Agriculture banned imports of the fleshy fruit from Mexico on… Continue reading How Mexico’s lucrative avocado industry found itself smack in the middle of gangland
A late snowfall could set back the growth of this budding lilac. oddharmonic/Flickr, CC BY-SA Weather patterns across the U.S. have felt like a roller coaster ride for the past several months. December and January were significantly warmer than average in many locations, followed by February’s intense cold wave and a dramatic warmup. If you’ve… Continue reading January warm spells, March freezes: How plants manage the shift from winter to spring
Too much caffeine interferes with sleep. Luis Molinero/Shutterstock.com Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com. Is it OK for teens to drink coffee? – Lucy G., Arlington, Virginia When my daughter was around 14 years old, she… Continue reading Is it OK for teens to drink coffee?
A variety of clues can tip off archaeologists about a promising spot for excavation. Gabriel Wrobel , CC BY-ND National Geographic magazines and Indiana Jones movies might have you picturing archaeologists excavating near Egyptian pyramids, Stonehenge and Machu Picchu. And some of us do work at these famous places. But archaeologists like us want to… Continue reading How do archaeologists know where to dig?
Less than a third of biographical entries on Wikipedia are about women. aradaphotography/shutterstock.com Movements like #MeToo have drawn increased attention to the systemic discrimination facing women in a range of professional fields, from Hollywood and journalism to banking and government. Discrimination is also a problem on user-driven sites like Wikipedia. Wikipedia’s 20th birthday is on… Continue reading Wikipedia at 20: Why it often overlooks stories of women in history
Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed the war on Ukraine is a ‘peacekeeping mission.’ Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP Russian President Vladimir Putin justifies his war on Ukraine as a peacekeeping mission, a “denazification” of the country. In his address to the Russian people on Feb. 24, 2022, Putin said the purpose… Continue reading Putin’s claim to rid Ukraine of Nazis is especially absurd given its history
The daily life of ordinary Russians – not just the country’s political elite or super rich oligarchs – is already being impacted by economic measures imposed by the international community in response to the invasion of Ukraine.
In the past few days, the U.S. has frozen the assets of the Russian central bank in Western jurisdictions – an unexpected move – and excluded most Russian banks from the SWIFT bank clearing system, which processes trillions of dollars’ worth of transactions every day.
This means Russian individuals and businesses will not be able to access any foreign bank accounts that they have. The Central Bank of Russia has tried to reassure the public, stating that the national bank transfer system can handle domestic transactions and that credit cards issued by Russian affiliates of Western banks should work inside Russia.
As news of the sanctions filtered out, Russians rushed to withdraw cash from ATMs and to dump rubles for other currencies, fearing a further depreciation of the national currency. A classic bank run appears to be underway, with the ruble losing 29% of its value in five days and exchange booths offering 100 rubles to the dollar. Russia’s central bank is doing everything it can to shore up the value of the ruble.
The falling ruble pushes up the price of imports, which make up over half the consumer basket. Inflation in Russia was already a sensitive issue prior to the invasion of Ukraine, running at 8.7%. In 2021, global food prices rose 28%, and Russia imposed price caps and export duties on some basic food items.
The new sanctions will severely impact the living standard of ordinary Russians. A survey conducted in July 2021 found that around 75% of Russians spent around half their income or more on food, and that was before the recent price surge.
To try to protect the ruble, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Feb. 28, 2022, ordered a ban on sending cash abroad, and exporters must convert 80% of their earnings into rubles. The Central Bank of Russia also hiked its base interest rate from 9.5% to 20%. This should help stabilize the ruble but will make borrowing more expensive for businesses and thus increase the chance of a deep recession.
Russia’s foreign bonds are trading at 30 cents on the dollar and have been downgraded to junk status by Standard & Poor’s and Fitch ratings. This will make it harder for Russian businesses to raise money to invest, meaning less growth and employment in the medium to long term.
Goods disappearing from shelves
Russia hasn’t been completely excluded from the international financial system. The new sanctions do allow certain Russian banks that handle oil and gas exports to continue transactions in an attempt to limit the impact on European energy consumers.
As it is, the general uncertainty caused by the war has caused the world oil price to surge above $100 a barrel to levels not seen since 2014, and grain prices are spiking due to the disruption of shipments from Russia and Ukraine – which together account for around one quarter of global grain exports.
Even before the invasion, grain prices had risen 50% over the past year, leading Russia to ban fertilizer exports to help secure a good harvest this year. While Russian exporters benefit from high oil and gas prices, Russian consumers, along with consumers all around the world, will be paying more for fuel and food in future months.
The sanctions also bar the export of certain key technologies to Russia. Russia is unable to manufacture the latest generation of microchips due to a lack of manufacturing expertise. Taiwan, source of about 60% of the world’s chips, has agreed to join the sanctions. That means a broad range of goods, from smartphones to automobiles, could disappear from Russian stores.
Similarly, about 66% of medicines are imported, and it is not yet known if a mechanism will be created to enable Russians to pay for imports of medicines.
Whom will Russians blame for economic pain?
Any sanctions regime can be evaded by smuggling imports through third parties. However, the U.S. has become adept at tracking such transactions and going after sanctions breakers. In any account, the risks involved push up the price considerably.
[Over 140,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.Sign up today.]
All in all, this amounts to a grim scenario for Russian consumers and businesses. The economy is likely to plunge into recession, and many Russians are already experiencing the effects of the sanctions.
Revenue from oil and gas exports will continue to flow, and that will provide Putin with enough funds to maintain the state’s security apparatus and put down popular unrest. However, worsening personal economic circumstances might affect how Russians view the war. In the past, Putin has tried to pass the blame for economic pain on to the West, but there is a chance that this time around, Russians might hold him to account.
Peter Rutland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
As fighting rages across Ukraine, two versions of reality that underlie the conflict stare across a deep divide, neither conceding any truth to the other.
Georgian troops joined large-scale joint military exercises with NATO forces outside Tbilisi, Georgia, on Aug. 1, 2018, on the 10th anniversary of its war with Russia, which strongly opposes Tbilisi’s NATO membership bid.Vano Shlamov/AFP via Getty Images
He continued, “As Russians stewed in their grievance and sense of disadvantage, a gathering storm of ‘stab in the back’ theories slowly swirled, leaving a mark on Russia’s relations with the West that would linger for decades.”
In June 1997, 50 prominent foreign policy experts signed an open letter to Clinton, saying, “We believe that the current U.S. led effort to expand NATO … is a policy error of historic proportions” that would “unsettle European stability.”
In 2008, Burns, then the American ambassador to Moscow, wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks in Moscow on Feb. 14, 2008, sparking NATO’s anger by threatening to target missiles at former Soviet bloc countries that host bases from the military alliance or a U.S. missile defense shield.Alexander Memenov/AFP via Getty Images)
Responding to Russia’s insecurity
There are different outcomes to the current crisis depending on whether you see its cause as Russian imperialism or NATO expansionism.
If you think the war in Ukraine is the work of a determined imperialist, any actions short of defeating the Russians will look like 1938 Munich-style appeasement and Joe Biden becomes the reviled Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister who acceded to Hitler’s demands for territory in Czechoslovakia only to find himself deceived as the Nazis steadily marched to war.
If, however, you believe that Russia has legitimate concerns about NATO expansion, then the door is open to discussion, negotiation, compromise and concessions.
Having spent decades studying Russian history and politics, I believe that in foreign policy, Putin has usually acted as a realist, unsentimentally and amorally taking stock of the power dynamics among states. He looks for possible allies ready to consider Russia’s interests – recently he found such an ally in China – and is willing to resort to armed force when he believes Russia is threatened.
Putin’s sense of Russia’s insecurity vis-à-vis a much more powerful NATO is genuine, but during the current impasse over Ukraine, his recent statements have become more fevered and even paranoid.
Usually a rationalist, Putin now appears to have lost patience and is driven by his emotions.
Putin himself was traumatized by the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, the loss of one-third of its former territory and half of its population. In an instant, the USSR disappeared, and Russia found itself much weaker and more vulnerable to rival great powers.
Many Russians agree with Putin and feel resentment and humiliation, along with anxiety about the future. But overwhelmingly they do not want war, Russian pollsters and political analysts say.
Ronald Suny does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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string(9287) "Listening to music can be a joyful experience.Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Is it possible to listen to too much music each day? – Emma, age 16, Springville, Utah
I love listening to music.
I love music so much I decided to study it in college. I’m earning a doctorate in music history, for which I have researched everything from early 20th-century French music to 1960s funk.
I make and perform music as well. I have played drums in rock and pop bands and composed original music for jazz ensembles.
I always have my headphones on, too. I listen to music while taking a walk. I listen to lo-fi hip-hop while answering emails. I listen to Brazilian bossa nova music while I cook and clean. I listen to the jazz vocalist Abbey Lincoln while driving around town or upbeat electronic music while taking long road trips.
I miss out on a lot around me by constantly listening to music, however. I might not hear the sound of birds outside my window or my cat’s mewling when she wants to be fed or to play. I might not hear the rustling of the wind or the chatter of my family enjoying one another’s company right outside my closed door.
Apart from causing you to miss out on all the sounds that surround you, generally speaking, listening to music does not harm your body. It does not damage your liver, poison your lungs or fry your brain. It is not possible to listen to too much music.
Watch the volume
There are, however, exceptions.
For instance, you can damage your ears if you listen to music too loud for long periods. The World Health Organization estimates that around 50% of teenagers and young adults listen to music on personal audio devices at unsafe levels.
Fortunately, some smartphones have built-in features that measure how much sound is coming from your headphones. Such features measure the output of sound in a unit of measurement called decibels.
Silence will produce no decibels at all. A jet plane engine produces 120. Everyday conversations are around 60 decibels, while a balloon popping can be as powerful as 150.
The WHO has concluded that people can withstand 85 decibels consecutively for eight hours without damaging their hearing. To give an example, I average about five hours of headphone listening a day at 70 decibels.
The author makes sure his headphone audio levels are safe.Rami Toubia Stucky
Take precautions
Anyone who plays music regularly or attends concerts and nightclubs needs to take extra caution as well. Several rock stars from the 1970s and 1980s have spoken out for years about their experience with hearing loss and tinnitus, a condition that causes ringing in the ears.
Their condition resulted from rehearsing and performing for long periods of time at loud volumes. The average concert often exceeds 100 decibels, and the WHO notes that such sound can begin to damage one’s ears after only 15 minutes. Standing closer to the amplifiers and musicians will make the decibel level increase.
Most musicians rehearse and perform for more than 15 minutes. And most concerts last at least an hour, if not much longer. The solution, then, is to take precautions.
Just the way airport workers who signal to pilots wear specialized earmuffs while they are on the tarmac to protect their hearing from damage caused by noisy jet planes, musicians and concertgoers can wear earplugs.
I carry mine – which can cut out up to 21 decibels of noise – everywhere, attached to my keychain. I put my earplugs in while rehearsing or attending shows, or whenever I need to relax in a noisy environment. Other people rarely notice.
“Sound of Metal,” a movie released in 2019, portrays a metal drummer’s experience with hearing loss. It is a sobering reminder of the importance of protecting your hearing.
But that doesn’t mean experiencing a lot of live or recorded music is bad for you. It is hard to listen to too much music, provided the volumes are reasonable.
Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.
And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.
Rami Toubia Stucky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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string(12910) "Thanks to the high prices they command, avocados are sometimes referred to as 'green gold.'Jose Castanares/AFP via Getty Images
To the relief of avocado lovers from coast to coast, the recent drama between the United States and Mexico was fleeting.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture banned imports of the fleshy fruit from Mexico on Feb. 11, 2022, after an employee of its Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, who was working in Mexico, received threats after refusing to certify a mislabeled shipment of avocados.
Eight days later, the ban was lifted, and cooks could resume smashing avocados into guacamole, blending them into smoothies and smearing them onto bread without trepidation.
Yet to me, this disruption – however brief – reveals just how reliant the U.S. has become on its neighbor for a product that has seen its demand soar. When I was working on my book “Avocado: A Global History,” I was struck by the extent to which this lucrative trade has evolved over the past 25 years, making it an attractive business possibility for both legitimate and criminal enterprises.
Mexico’s cash crop
Avocados from Mexico have been fueling America’s taste for the fruit since 1997, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture lifted a 1914 import ban, which originally was implemented due to fears over pests like seed weevils infesting U.S. crops. At the time, Southern California produced about 90% of the avocados eaten by Americans.
Since then, per capita avocado consumption in the U.S. has ballooned from 2 pounds in 2001 to nearly 8 pounds in 2018.
This increase in the popularity of avocados, coupled with the limitations of domestic sources, has allowed Mexican avocados to dominate the American market. Today, Mexico – specifically, the Mexican state of Michoacán, which is the only state certified to sell the fruit to the U.S. – supplies about 80% of the 60 million pounds of avocados eaten north of the border each week.
A TV ad for Mexican avocados aired during the 2022 Super Bowl.
Avocados are sometimes referred to as “green gold” because of the price they command in international commodity markets. Exports of avocados from Mexico were valued at nearly US$3 billion in 2021, ahead of both tequila and beer, two other popular Mexican exports. The average price of an avocado is up 10% from a year ago; during the brief ban, the price of a carton of the fruit catapulted to nearly $60, up from around $30 a year ago.
Currently, less than 1% of avocados eaten in the U.S. come from places other than Mexico and the U.S. Countries like Peru and Colombia also produce the fruit.
Members of a self-defense group guard an avocado plantation from drug cartels in the state of Michoacán, Mexico.Enrique Castro/AFP via Getty Images
But a bloody turf war has intensified in recent years.
In 2019, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel killed nine people in Uruapan, Michoacán’s hub of avocado distribution, hanging their corpses from a prominent overpass in the city. They dumped seven more bodies on the side of a road, leaving a banner at the scene that taunted a rival gang, the Viagras. There are even reports of cartels using drones to drop bombs as part of their efforts to control the economy of the region.
Threats directed at inspectors have happened before. While no individual cartel has been directly tied to a specific threat, U.S. officials seem to think the threats are linked to increased cartel participation in the avocado trade.
In 2019, a team of USDA inspectors working in Ziracuaretiro, a city just west of Urupan, were robbed and threatened with violence. Later that year, the USDA wrote a memo stating it would suspend inspection activities if threats of physical violence and intimidation against inspectors continued. After the most recent threat, the USDA referenced this memo when announcing the temporary import ban.
The Hass holds all the cards
Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obradordismissed the notion that the suspension was due to cartels associated with the avocado trade. Instead, he blamed unspecified political interests in the U.S. and pressure from other countries who want a share of the lucrative American avocado market.
One of the reasons the U.S. began allowing Mexican avocados to be imported over the objection of domestic growers was NAFTA. The U.S. wanted the ability to send corn and other agricultural goods to Mexico under the rules of the 1994 free trade agreement. But the Mexican government demanded some sort of agricultural export quid pro quo to help balance trade between the two countries, and avocados were ripe for the job.
The recent brief disruption underscores the risks of being so heavily reliant on a product that comes from one region in one country that’s rife with violence and corruption.
Yet it isn’t easy to simply open up an avocado spigot from another country. Americans really prefer just one variety of avocado: the Hass, which is the type imported from Mexico. While the U.S. allows Hass avocado imports from Peru and Colombia, wholesalers prefer not to sell them because they’re thought to be lower quality. Hass is the dominant variety grown in California, too, but American growers can’t grow nearly enough to meet the demand.
Greenskin avocados, which are grown in Florida and the Caribbean, along with many other countries, aren’t nearly as popular with consumers due to textural differences and the fact that they don’t change color to indicate when they are ripe. Greenskin avocados could ease U.S. dependence on Mexican avocados, but until they gain acceptance by avocado eaters, they won’t help wean Americans off the Hass avocados grown in Michoacán.
Avocados might be a source of political tension, but their unicorn status as a creamy, delicious food that’s considered healthy makes most people willing to put politics aside and pass the guacamole.
Jeffrey Miller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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string(13905) "A late snowfall could set back the growth of this budding lilac.oddharmonic/Flickr, CC BY-SA
If you’ve ever seen lilac bushes crushed by snowdrifts, then budding on a warm day just a few weeks later, you may wonder how plants tolerate such extremes. I study how climate change affects the timing of seasonal events in the life cycles of plants, birds and insects in Massachusetts, so I know that species have evolved here to handle New England’s famously changeable weather. But a warming climate is disrupting weather patterns and testing the abilities of many species to adapt.
Tolerating cold
On brutal winter days when temperatures are far below freezing, animals hibernate underground or huddle in protected spots. But trees and shrubs have to sit there and take it. The tissues in their trunks, branches and roots are alive. How do they survive the freezing cold?
In autumn, woody plants in many parts of North America start preparing for winter. When their leaves change color and fall, their twigs, branches and trunks start to lose water. As a result, their cells contain higher concentrations of sugars, salts and organic compounds.
This lowers the freezing point of the cells and tissues, and allows them to survive temperatures far below the normal freezing point of water. The trick has its limits, though, so extreme cold events can still kill certain plants.
Trees in cold climates have evolved protections against ice and snow.Richard Primack, CC BY-ND
Tree and shrub roots remain largely unchanged and inactive during winter, relying on insulation from snow and soil for protection. For the most part, the temperature of the soil around roots stays at or above freezing. Soil, fallen leaves and persistent snow layers insulate the ground above the roots and prevent it from losing heat.
The surprising danger of spring frosts
After plants stoically withstand cold winters, early spring brings new dangers. Plants need to leaf out as early as they can in spring to take full advantage of the growing season. But this involves pumping water into their developing leaves, which reduces the concentration of sugars, salts and organic compounds in their tissues and removes their winter protection from cold.
Each species has a characteristic leaf-out time. Early-leafing species such as blueberries and willows are the gamblers of the plant kingdom. Later species, like oak and pine, are the cautious and conservative types. For any species, leafing out too early is a risk because late frosts can damage or kill young leaves.
Flowers are also vulnerable to unpredictable spring frosts because they contain lots of water. If the flowers of fruit trees, such as apples, are killed by frost, the trees won’t produce fruit later in the summer. Late frosts also can cause disappointingly short flowering seasons for early-flowering ornamental plants such as forsythias and magnolias.
Plant wake-up calls
To guard against frost and still take advantage of the full growing season, trees and shrubs have developed three ways to know when it is time to start growing in spring.
First, plants have winter chilling requirements: They hold on to winter dormancy until they have been exposed to a certain number of cold winter days. This trait helps them avoid leafing or flowering during abnormally warm periods in midwinter.
Second, plants also have spring warming requirements that promote growth after they experience a certain number of warm days each spring. This feature helps them start to grow as soon as it is warm enough.
For woody plants like this rhododendron, the timing of spring leaf-out is a balance between maximizing their growing seasons and avoiding late frosts.Richard Primack, CC BY-ND
Third, some plants also have a photoperiod response, which means they react to the length of time they are exposed to light in a 24-hour period. This prepares them to leaf out as days get longer and warmer in the spring. Beech trees have both a warming requirement and a photoperiod response, but the temperature requirement is much stronger, so they get going after just a few warm days in late spring.
Interestingly, North American trees such as red maple and black birch are more cautious and conservative than European and East Asian trees. The weather in eastern North America is more variable, and the threat of late spring frosts is higher here than in those regions. As a result, North American trees have evolved to leaf out a few weeks later than comparable trees from Europe and East Asia.
Climate change scrambles the signals
Plants are highly attuned to temperature signals, so warming driven by climate change is making it harder for many species to withstand winter cold and spring frosts. As spring temperatures get warmer than in the past, trees such as apples and pears may respond by leafing out and flowering several weeks earlier than normal. This can increase their vulnerability to late frosts.
The leaves on this cherry tree have suffered damage from a late frost.Richard Primack, CC BY-ND
In 2007, an exceptionally warm period in March triggered trees to leaf out across the eastern and central United States. A hard frost in April then killed the young leaves and flowers of oaks, hickories and other tree species. The trees were able to produce a second crop of leaves, but could not fully replace the leaves they’d lost, which quite likely stunted their growth for that year.
Insect pests also pose an increasing threat to plants. Harsh winter weather holds in check many insects found in northern climates, such as hemlock woolly adelgids and emerald ash borers. As winters become milder, these insects are more likely to survive, move further northward, cause major outbreaks and damage trees.
Warmer winters also lead to more days when the ground is bare. Cold snaps that occur when there is no insulating layer of snow can freeze the soil and kill roots. Tree and shrub branches then die back because the damaged roots cannot supply enough water and nutrients. In extreme cases, the plants may die.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Plant Hardiness Zone Map shows that these zones – areas where various plant species are most likely to thrive – are shifting northward as climate change warms the U.S.
In coming decades, many cold-loving tree species such as spruces and firs will become less abundant when they are not able to handle new challenges associated with a warmer climate. In the Northeast U.S., native species such as sugar maple and beech will be gradually replaced by native species from farther south, such as oaks and hickories. And nonnative species, such as Norway maples, are taking advantage of these disruptions to disperse into forests from roadsides and neighborhoods.
Similar shifts are happening in many places as climate change alters the signals plants rely on to mark the changing seasons.
Richard B. Primack does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Is it OK for teens to drink coffee? – Lucy G., Arlington, Virginia
When my daughter was around 14 years old, she began to ask if she could have a cup of coffee in the morning like Mom and Dad. As a scientist who studies the effects of caffeine – the ingredient in coffee that helps wake you up – on kids, I had more information available to me to inform my answer than most parents would.
Kids and teens can also get caffeine from many foods and drinks, including chocolate, chocolate milk and iced tea. What’s more, some over-the-counter medications that kids might take, such as Excedrin, are significant sources of caffeine. But coffee is the main source of caffeine among Americans 12 years and up.
Based on my years of research, I’m confident that one daily cup of coffee won’t harm kids over the age of 12 – as long as they avoid all other sources of caffeine.
That one cup of coffee combined with, say, a can of iced tea or soda, or a chocolate bar, could put kids over the daily limit of 100 milligrams of caffeine doctors recommend. Adults should aim for no more than 400 milligrams of caffeine, which they could get from four cups of coffee.
And since caffeine is in so many different foods and drinks, it’s easy for kids – or grownups – to get more than they should without realizing it.
The threat to sleep might not sound like the most serious of all of these side effects to you. But it could be. The National Sleep Foundation, a nonprofit that funds and conducts research on sleep, recommends that teens get about nine hours of sleep per night. But studies show that on average kids get much less sleep than that.
Old myths
Some adults may tell kids that drinking caffeine will stunt their growth.
Second, caffeine consumed later in the day can reduce sleep. Growth hormone, which makes you grow, is released early in sleep, so the idea was that less sleep would lead to less growth.
Based on the best science that is available, I’ve been allowing my three children to have one cup of coffee first thing in the morning once they turn 12. It is important to think about what else they’re getting with their coffee, however. Some of the sweet iced and flavored coffee drinks, such as Starbucks Frappuccinos, that are popular with kids have over 50 grams of sugar. And consuming too much added sugar can also have negative health consequences.
Any negative effects of the caffeine they get from that morning jolt wear off long before bedtime. But I don’t let them have any caffeine-containing products after 3 p.m. to protect their sleep.
Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.
And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.
Jennifer L. Temple receives funding from the National Institutes of Health.
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string(16456) "A variety of clues can tip off archaeologists about a promising spot for excavation.Gabriel Wrobel , CC BY-ND
National Geographic magazines and Indiana Jones movies might have you picturing archaeologists excavating near Egyptian pyramids, Stonehenge and Machu Picchu. And some of us do work at these famous places.
But archaeologists likeus want to learn about how people from the past lived all over the planet. We rely on left-behind artifacts to help fill out that picture. We need to excavate in places where there’s evidence of human activity – those clues from the past aren’t always as obvious as a giant pyramid, though.
Finding that evidence can be as simple as strolling past clearly distinguishable ruins – ah, there are some broken pots or carved stones right over there. It can be as complex as using lasers, satellite imagery and other new geophysical techniques to reveal long-lost structures. The right skills and tools are helping researchers locate traces from the past that would have been overlooked even a few decades ago.
Open eyes, open ears, open minds
The simplest and oldest identification method is a pedestrian survey: looking for evidence of human activity, either on unstructured strolls or when walking in a grid. Unless the evidence is crystal clear – like those broken pots – such surveys usually need a trained eye to read the clues.
In Belize, where one of us (Gabe) works, remains of houses and even large temple pyramids that were abandoned over 1,000 years ago are usually covered in trees and plants; exposed sections look like stone piles.
I brought my father to a site where workers had removed the thick foliage so archaeologists could thoroughly map the site. Another archaeologist and I excitedly discussed the visible architectural features – patios, terraces, the stubs of walls. Finally, my dad threw his hands up in the air and said “All I see are rocks!”
But our trained eyes recognized that the piles of stones or earthen mounds we saw were suspiciously aligned. Stare at archaeological sites long enough and you’ll notice them too.
Archaeologist Josue Ramos from the Belize Institute of Archaeology stands beside a mound of rocks newly revealed in cleared jungle. Its size and shape show that this site is part of an ancient building.Gabriel Wrobel, CC BY-ND
Understanding what you see also can require familiarity with local geology and flora. And who is more familiar than the people who live in a region? It pays for archaeologists to make friends with the locals and to be very respectful of their knowledge. In my work in Belize, most of the settlement and ritual cave sites where my students and I work were initially identified by local hunters who know the forest and its landmarks intimately.
One time, I was walking through the jungle in Belize when a local friend of mine stopped suddenly in what appeared to me as a random cluster of trees. He said “This must have been someone’s farm.” He’d seen specific domestic plants that are commonly found in gardens in his village. Not being as familiar with local flora, I never would have noticed this subtle difference. So, even living plants can be considered part of human-modified archaeological sites.
High-tech remote sensing
In recent years, archaeologists have begun to use new methods to find archaeological sites that had previously been overlooked. These techniques, broadly referred to as remote sensing, allow us to peer through dense forests without clearing them, digitally removing jungle growth and centuries of soil to reveal long-lost structures hidden beneath. High-resolution scans using lasers or 3D photographs can even detect subtle undulations of ground surfaces that are not visible to the human eye.
The view of fields around the Maya site of Saturday Creek, Belize. The image on left stitched together thousands of photographs into a single 3D surface. The image on the right used virtual illumination to highlight small changes in elevation to identify ancient house mounds.Models created by Mark Willis, used with permission of Eleanor Harrison-Buck, CC BY-ND
For instance, LiDAR – light detection and ranging – fires pulsed lasers to determine distance based on what reflects back and how quickly. When used from a plane, millions of points are collected, resulting in a detailed topographic map of the landscape. Specialists working with these data can remove trees and other objects to digitally expose ground surfaces.
A recent example at the ancient Maya city of Tikal, Guatemala, revealed around 61,000 structures in the jungles surrounding the city’s center. The density of settlement came as a shock because, despite extensive pedestrian survey in the past, even experienced archaeologists failed to recognize most of these ephemeral remains.
Increasingly, archaeologists find sites by searching satellite imagery, including Google Earth. For instance, during a recent drought in England, the remains of ancient features began to appear across the landscape and were visible from above.
This image presents magnetic data from the Hollywood Mounds site, a Mississippian mound center in Tunica County, Miss. Excavation verified that the rectangular shapes are the remains of wattle-and-daub structures.Bryan Haley
Remote sensing can also focus on smaller areas. Geophysical techniques are commonly used before excavating to scan the ground where researchers know archaeological remains are buried. These nondestructive methods help pick out buried anomalies from surrounding soils by distinguishing their density, magnetic properties or conduction of electrical currents.
The shape and alignment of these features can often provide clues about what they are. For instance, the dense walls of a building will show up as distinct from the surrounding soil.
What will archaeologists of the future find?
As you look around for evidence of human activity in the past, remember you’re actively involved in making the archaeological sites of the future. Since archaeology is the study of anything material left behind by human beings, that definition also fits what remains after Nevada’s annual Burning Man festival, for example, or as migrants journey across the U.S.-Mexico border.
Tailgating (and associated trash) in the University of Idaho’s Kibbie Dome parking lot in 2011.Curtis Cawley, Kaitlin Frederickson, Allison Neterer and Wendy Willis., CC BY-ND
In fact, there are archaeological sites nearly everywhere you look. One of us (Stacey) once studied trash left behind during tailgating parties. My students and I wanted to understand if alumni and students were drinking different types of alcohol. Using archaeological methodologies, we discovered that alumni partied with expensive alcohol, such as wine and microbrews, while students drank what they could afford: cheap, corporate beers, with Coors Light and Bud Light being the most common beers of choice.
We made this archaeological “discovery” by carefully mapping and identifying trash prior to and during the game. While most of it was picked up, smaller pieces undoubtedly found their way into the soil, perhaps to be discovered by a future Campus Archaeology Program.
Future archaeologists will find a lot of plastic – like these microplastics on a Vietnamese beach – in layers of the Earth dating to the current era.Gabriel Wrobel, CC BY-ND
We archaeologists used to dig primarily at sites that were easy to find. Technology is changing that. In fact, applications like Google Earth are making possible a new era of citizen science, with researchers sometimes enlisting the help of members of the public to comb through data. Through efforts by archaeologists to engage and educate the public, including incorporating volunteers into lab and field work, giving public lectures and workshops, and creating accessible web resources, we hope to show that the story of our past is often hidden in plain sight.
Stacey Camp receives funding from the National Park Service.
Gabriel D. Wrobel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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string(11422) "Less than a third of biographical entries on Wikipedia are about women. aradaphotography/shutterstock.com
Movements like #MeToo have drawn increased attention to the systemic discrimination facing women in a range of professional fields, from Hollywood and journalism to banking and government.
The volume of traffic on Wikipedia’s site – coupled with its integration into search results and digital assistants like Alexa and Siri – makes Wikipedia the predominant source of information on the web. YouTube even started including Wikipedia links below videos on highly contested topics. But studies show that Wikipedia underrepresents content on women.
We are a historian and librarian at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and we’re taking steps to empower our students and our global community to address issues of gender bias on Wikipedia.
Signs of bias
Driven by a cohort of over 33 million volunteer editors, Wikipedia’s content can change in almost real time. That makes it a prime resource for current events, popular culture, sports and other evolving topics.
But relying on volunteers leads to systemic biases – both in content creation and improvement. A 2013 study estimated that women only accounted for 16.1 percent of Wikipedia’s total editor base. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales believes that number has not changed much since then, despite several organized efforts.
If women don’t actively edit Wikipedia at the same rate as men, topics of interest to women are at risk of receiving disproportionately low coverage. One study found that Wikipedia’s coverage of women was more comprehensive than Encyclopedia Britannica online, but entries on women still constituted less than 30 percent of biographical coverage. Entries on women also more frequently link to entries on men than vice-versa and are more likely to include information on romantic relationships and family roles.
What’s more, Wikipedia’s policies state that all content must be “attributable to a reliable, published source.” Since women throughout history have been less represented in published literature than men, it can be challenging to find reliable published sources on women.
An obituary in a paper of record is often a criterion for inclusion as a biographical entry in Wikipedia. So it should be no surprise that women are underrepresented as subjects in this vast online encyclopedia. As The New York Times itself noted, its obituaries since 1851 “have been dominated by white men” – an oversight the paper now hopes to address through its “Overlooked” series.
Categorization can also be an issue. In 2013, a New York Times op-ed revealed that some editors had moved women’s entries from gender-neutral categories (e.g., “American novelists”) to gender-focused subcategories (e.g., “American women novelists”).
Next great American woman novelist?Roman Kosolapov/shutterstock.com
Gender bias is also an ongoing issue in content development and search algorithms. Google Translate has been shown to overuse masculine pronouns and, for a time, LinkedIn recommended men’s names in search results when users searched for a woman.
What can be done?
The solution to systemic biases that plague the web remains unclear. But libraries, museums, individual editors and the Wikimedia Foundation itself continue to make efforts to improve gender representation on sites such as Wikipedia.
Organized edit-a-thons can create a community around editing and developing underrepresented content. Edit-a-thons aim to increase the number of active female editors on Wikipedia, while empowering participants to edit entries on women during the event and into the future.
Our university library at the Rochester Institute of Technology hosts an annual Women on Wikipedia Edit-a-thon in celebration of Women’s History Month. The goal is to improve the content on at least 100 women in one afternoon.
For the past six years, students in our school’s American Women’s and Gender History course have worked to create new or substantially edit existing Wikipedia entries about women. One student created an entry on deaf-blind pioneer Geraldine Lawhorn, while another added roughly 1,500 words to jazz artist Blanche Calloway’s entry.
This class was supported by the Wikimedia Education Program, which encourages educators and students to contribute to Wikipedia in academic settings.
Wikipedia’s dependence on volunteer editors has resulted in several systemic issues, but it also offers an opportunity for self-correction. Organized efforts help to give voice to women previously ignored by other resources.
This is an updated version of an article originally published in 2018.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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string(13809) "Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed the war on Ukraine is a 'peacekeeping mission.'Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP
Russian President Vladimir Putin justifies his war on Ukraine as a peacekeeping mission, a “denazification” of the country.
In his address to the Russian people on Feb. 24, 2022, Putin said the purpose was to “protect people” who had been “subjected to bullying and genocide … for the last eight years. And for this we will strive for the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine.”
The victims of the genocide claimed by Putin are Russian speakers; the Nazis he referenced are the elected representatives of the Ukrainian people. While Ukraine’s new language laws have upset some minorities, independent news media have uncovered no evidence of genocide against Russian speakers. In fact, as the historian Timothy Snyder has pointed out, Russian speakers have more freedom in Ukraine than they have in Russia, where Putin’s authoritarian government routinely suppresses political dissent. And while far right groups have been growing in Ukraine, their electoral power is limited.
As the author of a recently published book on anti-Jewish violence in Ukraine and a historian of the Holocaust, I know why the accusations of Nazism and genocide have resonance in Ukraine. But I also understand that despite episodic violence, Ukrainian history offers a model of tolerance and democratic government.
Ukraine’s Jewish leadership
First, it is worth pointing out that Ukraine today is a vibrant, pluralistic democracy. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky won a five-year term in the 2019 presidential election with a landslide majority, defeating 39 candidates. His Servant of the People party then swept the parliamentary elections in July 2019, winning 254 seats in the 450-seat chamber, becoming the first majority government in the history of the modern Ukrainian state. Zelensky was well-known as a comedian and star of the popular sitcom “Servant of the People,” from which his party’s name was derived.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaking at a news conference.AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky
The fact that Zelensky is the grandson of a Holocaust survivor and was raised in what he told The Times of Israel was “an ordinary Soviet Jewish family” was barely noted during the election. “Nobody cares. Nobody asks about it,” he remarked in the same interview. Nor did Ukrainians seem to mind that the prime minister at the time of Zelensky’s election, Volodymyr Groysman, also had a Jewish background.
For a brief period of time, Ukraine was the only state outside of Israel to have both a Jewish head of state and a Jewish head of government. “How could I be a Nazi?” Zelensky asked in a public address after the Russian invasion began. “Explain it to my grandfather.”
The pogroms against Jews
Sporadic episodes of violence against Jews, or pogroms, began well before the Holocaust. In 1881, for instance, after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, ordinary churchgoers, laborers, railway workers and soldiers attacked Jewish-owned shops, mills and canteens, resulting in the deaths of dozens of Jews in what was then considered the south of Russia, but is now Ukraine. During another wave of violence following the Revolution of 1905, workers, peasants and soldiers, egged on by Russian right-wing paramilitary groups, murdered 5,000 Jews in the region.
During the unrest that followed the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, about 100,000 Jews died as a result of attacks perpetrated against them by soldiers fighting to restore a united Russia, as well as by the armies of the newly established Ukrainian and Polish states.
Finally, during the Second World War, German soldiers murdered 1.5 million Jews in the areas that are now Ukraine, often with the collaboration of Ukrainian militias established in the diaspora and with the help of local auxiliary police. The role of ethnic Ukrainians in the Holocaust remains contentious in Ukraine today, where nationalist heroes who collaborated with the Nazis continue to be honored.
Small stones placed on the photos of victims of the 1941 massacre where the Nazi killed tens of thousands of Jews during WWII, in Kyiv, Ukraine.AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky
Yet at the same time, millions of non-Jewish Ukrainians lost their lives under the Nazis or were exploited as slave laborers. The occupiers treated Ukrainian lands as little more than Lebensraum, living space for ethnic Germans.
A pluralistic state
Forgotten in this history is the period between 1917 and 1919 when an independent Ukrainian state offered a different model of multiculturalism and pluralism. The Ukrainian state that declared its independence from Russia in the aftermath of the 1917 Revolutions, envisioned a Ukraine for all ethnicities and religious groups living within its territory.
One of its first acts was passing the Law on National Autonomy in January 1918, which allowed each of the major ethnic minority groups – Russians, Jews, and Poles – broad autonomous rights, including the right to use their own language.
The cabinet included a Secretariat of National Affairs, with vice-secretariats for Russians, Jews and Poles, and, briefly in 1919, even a Ministry of Jewish Affairs. The legislative body, as well, included proportional representation from each of the national minorities. The state issued declarations and currency printed in four languages: Ukrainian, Russian, Polish and Yiddish.
However, this state, hailed by Jews around the world as a model for the new nation states then emerging in eastern and central Europe, never managed to hold the capital for more than a few months at a time. By April of 1919, the government was being run from a moving train and could barely claim more land than the tracks beneath it.
From its inauguration in January 1918, Ukraine found itself enmeshed in a bloody war on multiple fronts. The Soviet Red Army attacked it from the east, while Moscow sought to ignite Bolshevik revolutions throughout Ukraine. A Russian White Army led by officers from the old tsarist army attacked from the south, hoping to reestablish a version of the Russian Empire. From the west, the army of the newly established Polish Republic attacked with the goal of restoring historic Poland’s borders.
[Over 140,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.Sign up today.]
At the same time, a range of insurgent fighters and anarchists formed militias to seize land for themselves. In the midst of this chaos, the dream of a pluralistic state devolved into inter-ethnic violence.
In March 1921, the war ended with the Treaty of Riga, incorporating much of the territory claimed by the independent Ukrainian state into the Soviet Union.
Putin’s selective telling of the past exaggerates the legacy of Nazism in Ukraine while ignoring the state’s historic struggle for pluralism and democracy. There is a good reason for this: he fears democracy more than he fears Nazism.
Jeffrey Veidlinger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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string(13614) "The ruble crashed to a record low after Putin invaded Ukraine and the West announced new sanctions. Alexander Nemenov/AFP via Getty Images)
The Biden administration is delivering on its vow to impose “severe sanctions” against Russia for its military aggression against Ukraine.
The new sanctions announced on Feb. 24, 2022, will cut off Russia’s major banks and companies from Western financing and impose direct financial costs on many of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s chief political allies. The sanctions package will also restrict Russia’s access to semiconductor products and the technologies it needs to sustain its industrial sector and military capabilities.
Because the new sanctions are multilateral in design and being implemented in close coordination with allies in Europe, Japan, Australia and other countries around the world, our research suggests they will have a significant impact on Russia.
What makes sanctions stick
We’ve studied the effectiveness of past sanctions both in terms of their economic impact and whether they attain their political objectives.
We’ve found that there are two conditions necessary for sanctions to be effective, at least when it comes to their economic impact: They must be multilateral, meaning they involve a broad coalition of governments, and they must be implemented by countries that have extensive commercial relations with the targeted regime.
That’s why the participation of the U.K., Germany, France and other European states – which have a much higher volume of trade with Russia than does the United States – in enforcing the sanctions is crucial.
Both Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Federal Security Service director Alexander Bortnikov are now under financial sanction by the U.S. and Europe.Alexei Nikolsky, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP
Powerful new sanctions
The new sanctions being implemented by the White House and the governments of other countries fall into two general categories: financial restrictions and export controls.
In the first group, the United States and its allies in Europe and other countries are imposing asset freezes and financial sanctions on Russia’s largest banks and several of the country’s richest and most powerful oligarchs. These measures cover nearly 80% of all Russian financial assets, what the U.S. Treasury Department called the “core infrastructure of the Russian financial system.”
The financial sanctions will block Russia’s largest financial companies including Sberbank and VTB Bank from accessing credit and currency markets and impede the ability of state-owned and private entities to raise capital.
And by imposing steep costs on these financial firms as well as on Putin’s main allies, such as Aleksandr Bortnikov, head of Russia’s Federal Security Service, and his son, Denis Bortnikov, who chairs VTB’s board, the sanctions should undermine the investment and development that drives the Russian economy.
The export controls, the second category, prohibit companies and countries from exporting technological equipment to Russia with components that use U.S.-built or -designed microchips.
Since the U.S. continues to dominate in making the kinds of high-end semiconductors necessary for advanced technologies, this provides important leverage. The export controls target Russia’s defense, aerospace and maritime sectors and will cut off Russia’s access to vital technological inputs, which will likely lead to the atrophy of key sectors of its industrial base.
While Russia imports most of its semiconductors from China, these are low-end chips used to run washing machines – not to operate a guided missile. Russia relies on U.S. semiconductor components for many of its most important technological applications.
Similar export controls on semiconductor products are being imposed by many others, including Europe, Japan and Taiwan.
Altogether, these sanctions – if sustained for many months – should have a significant effect in curtailing Russia’s strategic capabilities by hurting the powerful energy sector and military industrial companies, which are bulwarks of Putin’s regime.
Why SWIFT isn’t on the list – yet
Missing from the latest sanctions is something Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called for explicitly in recent days: denying Russia access to the SWIFT system of global financial communications and credit facilitation.
SWIFT, which stands for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, connects thousands of financial institutions around the world. Ejecting Russia would completely cut off Russia from Western financial markets and prevent hard currency transactions. This would impose immediate economic costs on Russia.
When Iran was cut off from SWIFT in 2012, it lost half of its oil export revenues and 30% of its foreign trade.
On the flip side, cutting off Russia would create costs for the many banks and corporations in Europe and other countries that currently do business with Russia, which is why so far the West has been unwilling to impose this sanction.
Importantly, that decision doesn’t belong to the U.S. alone but to the central banks of the 10 member countries, which also include Canada, Germany and Italy.
Bearing the costs of imposing sanctions
Discussions are continuing and pressure may build to take this or other more severe measure in response to the Russian assault, especially if its military engages in serious violations of humanitarian law regarding treatment of innocent civilians and the leaders of Ukraine.
Ultimately, the effectiveness of sanctions depends on the strength of the measures and the willingness of the states imposing these measures to bear the costs of their implementation.
In this case the impact of the strong sanctions now levied will hurt Russia in an ongoing way for the next few years, even as U.S. and its allies’ banks and commercial companies, and their customers, are going to bear some of the cost for standing up against aggression.
That the economy will feel pain is clear to us. Whether Putin and his closest allies pay a political price high enough that it leads to changed behavior is less certain.
David Cortright is affiliated with Win Without War.
George A. Lopez is a Non-Resident Fellow with the Quincy Institute, Washington, D.C., and a U.S. Fulbright Senior Specialist in Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies, 2018-2023.
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string(11100) "As the ruble crumbles, are the wheels falling off the Russian economy?AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin
The daily life of ordinary Russians – not just the country’s political elite or super rich oligarchs – is already being impacted by economic measures imposed by the international community in response to the invasion of Ukraine.
In the past few days, the U.S. has frozen the assets of the Russian central bank in Western jurisdictions – an unexpected move – and excluded most Russian banks from the SWIFT bank clearing system, which processes trillions of dollars’ worth of transactions every day.
This means Russian individuals and businesses will not be able to access any foreign bank accounts that they have. The Central Bank of Russia has tried to reassure the public, stating that the national bank transfer system can handle domestic transactions and that credit cards issued by Russian affiliates of Western banks should work inside Russia.
As news of the sanctions filtered out, Russians rushed to withdraw cash from ATMs and to dump rubles for other currencies, fearing a further depreciation of the national currency. A classic bank run appears to be underway, with the ruble losing 29% of its value in five days and exchange booths offering 100 rubles to the dollar. Russia’s central bank is doing everything it can to shore up the value of the ruble.
The falling ruble pushes up the price of imports, which make up over half the consumer basket. Inflation in Russia was already a sensitive issue prior to the invasion of Ukraine, running at 8.7%. In 2021, global food prices rose 28%, and Russia imposed price caps and export duties on some basic food items.
The new sanctions will severely impact the living standard of ordinary Russians. A survey conducted in July 2021 found that around 75% of Russians spent around half their income or more on food, and that was before the recent price surge.
To try to protect the ruble, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Feb. 28, 2022, ordered a ban on sending cash abroad, and exporters must convert 80% of their earnings into rubles. The Central Bank of Russia also hiked its base interest rate from 9.5% to 20%. This should help stabilize the ruble but will make borrowing more expensive for businesses and thus increase the chance of a deep recession.
Russia’s foreign bonds are trading at 30 cents on the dollar and have been downgraded to junk status by Standard & Poor’s and Fitch ratings. This will make it harder for Russian businesses to raise money to invest, meaning less growth and employment in the medium to long term.
Goods disappearing from shelves
Russia hasn’t been completely excluded from the international financial system. The new sanctions do allow certain Russian banks that handle oil and gas exports to continue transactions in an attempt to limit the impact on European energy consumers.
As it is, the general uncertainty caused by the war has caused the world oil price to surge above $100 a barrel to levels not seen since 2014, and grain prices are spiking due to the disruption of shipments from Russia and Ukraine – which together account for around one quarter of global grain exports.
Even before the invasion, grain prices had risen 50% over the past year, leading Russia to ban fertilizer exports to help secure a good harvest this year. While Russian exporters benefit from high oil and gas prices, Russian consumers, along with consumers all around the world, will be paying more for fuel and food in future months.
The sanctions also bar the export of certain key technologies to Russia. Russia is unable to manufacture the latest generation of microchips due to a lack of manufacturing expertise. Taiwan, source of about 60% of the world’s chips, has agreed to join the sanctions. That means a broad range of goods, from smartphones to automobiles, could disappear from Russian stores.
Similarly, about 66% of medicines are imported, and it is not yet known if a mechanism will be created to enable Russians to pay for imports of medicines.
Whom will Russians blame for economic pain?
Any sanctions regime can be evaded by smuggling imports through third parties. However, the U.S. has become adept at tracking such transactions and going after sanctions breakers. In any account, the risks involved push up the price considerably.
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All in all, this amounts to a grim scenario for Russian consumers and businesses. The economy is likely to plunge into recession, and many Russians are already experiencing the effects of the sanctions.
Revenue from oil and gas exports will continue to flow, and that will provide Putin with enough funds to maintain the state’s security apparatus and put down popular unrest. However, worsening personal economic circumstances might affect how Russians view the war. In the past, Putin has tried to pass the blame for economic pain on to the West, but there is a chance that this time around, Russians might hold him to account.
Peter Rutland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
