Why are western sanctions enough to destroy North Korean economy but not enough to destroy Russian economy

The economy of North Korea never grew with Western sanctions. North Korea has the support of China.

The economy of Iran still hasn't recovered to 2012 levels, they lost 2 decades of growth at least. They have support from China.

Russia still hasn't reached past it's 2013 peak, they have the support of China, they will likely lost the least number of years from western sanctions, 15 years.

Out of these three nation states Russia appears to be doing the best even after mass western sanctions.

Theories for Russian resilience:

1. USSR remaining resources keeping Russia afloat. While Russia is no where close to as great an empire as the USSR, they do retain all the knowledge from that era which is still good enough to build a middle income economy on.

2. Russian oil reserves. They are far closer to China so its far harder to blockade their sales of oil like in the case of Iran.

3. Russians just being more competent than Iranians and North Koreans. The failed slav is still more competent than the average arab. Making Russia capable of getting 33% further under the same harsh conditions.

Russia's median age has already hit 39.2. Based upon historical trends with other nation states, we can expect to see economic decline by 2035 based on this metric alone.

In addition, Russia only gets to trade with two major world economies, while all the other major world economies get to trade with every other major world economy. This puts Russia in a position where it is unable to grow its per capita income to levels similar to Mexico or China. Which puts them in a position where they cannot expect their GDP per capita to even cross 20k per capita before it falls into stagnation or decline.

In conclusion:

Russia's GDP growth is less sustainable than Mexico's but more sustainable than Iran's. This guarantees Russian economic decline within the next ten years fast forwarded by their war with Ukraine. GDP growth will decline year on year from now onward. Russia GDP per capita will never cross 18,000 USD nominal.

Fun fact:

Poland has a higher GDP per capita than Russia

Bulgaria has a higher GDP per capita than Russia

Kazakhstan has a higher GDP per capita than Russia

Russia is ahead of Turkey barely.

The peak upper limit for median age while a nation state can still keep growing appears to be 41-46 years for a developed economy in 2023.

China's median age by 2035 will be more than 45, which again sets 2035 as the deadline for when China will stop growing above 2% GDP growth rate.

US median age remains at 38.5 years old. Growing 1.5 years every single decade. This is younger than China's current median age of 39 in current year.

China will be too old to grow economically long before the US. Russia is dependent on China for its economy to grow.

Russia will be primarily dependent on Indian economic growth after Chinese growth stagnates, which would make things worse for Russia as India would not be able to provide as many resources or as much trade as China for quite some time.

Russia is cooked at some point between 2028 and 2035.

This post rests on native land.