For MORE than two years most Russian companies carried on unscathed by the warfare in Ukraine. A surge in defence spending and subsidised loans for customers and companies propped up spending at residence, whilst sanctions curtailed entry to overseas markets and inflation jumped. Western firms from Volkswagen, a German carmaker, to Shell, a Dutch oil big, offered their Russian operations to native enterprises. After an preliminary tumble, the MOEX, an index of Russian shares, steadily recovered (see chart).
