New Delhi, Feb. 17 -- AS RUSSIA'S WAR against Ukraine enters its fifth year, the economy that sustains it has been transformed in ways that will be difficult-perhaps impossible-to reverse without another crisis. Westerners keep waiting for the Russian economy to collapse. It won't. But nor will it recover. It has entered what mountaineers call the death zone: the altitude above 8,000 metres at which the human body consumes itself faster than it can be repaired.

Russia's economy is stuck in what might be described as negative equilibrium: holding itself together while steadily destroying its own future capacity. Export revenues are falling, and economic weakness means budget gaps cannot be filled with additional tax revenues. The economy ...