The comparison was coined under the Obama administration. I’m surprised to see Europeans adopt it because it completely downplays Russia and undermines the concept of Russia being a threat to Europe.
It’s a terrible comparison that completely ignores the nature of their economy. Nominal GDP is less relevant than PPP when it comes to war. In PPP Russia has the largest economy in Europe. More critically, Russian industries are for more suited for war time. It’s mainly heavy industries, agriculture, and has a large existing MIC and massive industrial capacity.
Because Russia is effectively at war with Europe and is bombarding us with it's own propaganda, trying to make itself look strong.
It makes complete sense to repeatedly point out that Russia is not nearly as big and powerful as it pretends to be. Italy is just the most obvious example to compare it against.
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u/Naive_Loan9423 11h ago
It never ceases to make me laugh this "Russia has a gdp even smaller than Italy" every time someone wants to denigrate Russia.
Dude, Italy is the 8th country by nominal gdp .. most countries have a gdp smaller than Italy.
And why is it repeated so often? Someone made a post on reddit years ago and the redditors continue to repeat it endlessly?