Putin finally admits Russia's economy is in trouble and grasps for answers, after warnings about a financial crisis have been piling up

The interesting element is Russia's decent PPP figures count against them when debt is involved. Debts are much worse than the headline figure when you are relying on all value being depressed in your economy.

Special military operation to liberate historically Chinese lands

China’s 5-year plan: turtle up and wait for Russia and the US to implode all on their own.

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This comment made me burst out laughing, thank you for this pick up on a Monday morning.

It's not the fall that kills them it's the six bullets they land on, on the way down.

Sooner or later the Russians will invent the bungalow.

That 1.3m figure is all causalities too. Only about 300,000 of those are actual deaths and the other millionish are guys that are now disabled and draining the economy further.

I read that the population was down to 140 million in 2023.

Edit: yep they’ve been busy. 40% is right

It's a game they live for, to get more power and money. The challenge to get more money and power is their love. That's why they do that, where a lot of other dudes would just make a man cave and play video games all day if they had enough money to sustain that.

He's in some crappy bunker or whatever--he has a mansion and a yacht. My dude, I will take that yacht off your hands if you don't need it. Then we can have a giant Listnook party as we cruise the seas.

The problem with everything he has already done is that if he stops doing what he is doing, someone will kill him. He really cannot stop. Why he let it get to that point is a good question, but given where he is at, its makes sense. Look at what happened to Muammar Gaddafi.

Biden: "I don't believe you have a soul." Putin: "We understand one another."

Just speculating but I imagine part of it is because Russian oligarchs know precisely how ruthless and cruel their fellow oligarchs are, and they fearing losing power and becoming vulnerable. There's nowhere for Putin to go where he can live a normal life. Anywhere he retired to would involve the same level of security, isolation and paranoia as he's living with now. Stepping down would mean a loss of control for no meaningful gain. More broadly, for western oligarchs (the Zuckerbergs, Thiels, Bezos types) my sense is the money is literally a score that determines your position in the hierarchy. Once you have that kind of money you enter a very exclusive realm of access, influence, and power. Y'know -- where you are free to orchestrate collusion, purchase politicians and r*** twelve year olds -- that sort of thing. But without a certsin amount of zeros behind you, you simply aren't allowed in.

They’re also going to have to then deal with all their soldiers coming home expecting back pay and benefits with mental and health issues that the Russian state is entirely unprepared to deal with 

Yeah, it's akin to Germany in WW2 when around 70-80% of their economy was focused on the war. If Russia packed up now and went home their country is done for. But even if they take and loot the Donbas, it still won't be enough to save their economy. Russia is cooked, the only difference is if they'll be medium or well done.

It only ends after Ukraine takes a Russian city. Until they see territory loss they'll keep coming. As long as Ukraine can only offer Russia fewer dead soldier they'll continue in the Russian tradition of meat grinding soldiers

Well. If Putin did the "honorable thing", his successor could blame the war all on Putin, stop the war and promise some reparations to Ukraine, and I'm pretty sure Ukraine would stop destroying their oil infrastructure. Many EU countries would be overjoyed to accept that convenient explanation and to restart buying oil, gas, and probably all kinds of resources from Russia...

That's a good analogy. The hangover is coming, one way or another. The more Russia drinks in the meantime, the worse it's going to be.

The thing about war is that it has relatively simple, predictable appetites. It wants explosives, fuel, weapons, transportation, soldiers, and so on. You know what you want from your war economy, so it's amenable to centralised planning. The downside is that it's unsustainable. So when you stop, you've now got an economy optimised around having free money poured in at one end and the value created being blown up in a field somewhere. War *isn't* good for the economy. It's a nitrous boost that leaves your whole powertrain fucked if you use it too much.

It's not that "war is good for the economy", it's that they've turned their economy toward total war production, while destroying the fundamental underpinnings of a normal healthy economy. They literally *can't* pivot back without severe pain. The war is hiding just how much they've destroyed their own economy. Military demand is literally the majority of their economy now. You can't just replace that overnight. You can't say "Well, this factory builds a 100 tanks a month now, let's have it make 10.000 bicycles next month". And even if you could, you can't magically make demand for those bicycles appear out of thin air; or whatever else you replace production with. Who'se going to buy the products? Russians? Can't afford anywhere near enough stuff to keep the economy afloat. And the rest of the world just isn't interested in almost anything that Russia might manage to make. Furthermore, its workforce has been decimated as a result of the war, and they're going to face huge demographic issues as a result of it. Its also nationalized/seized numerous businesses both domestic and foreign; nobody's going to want to invest in Russia after the way they've gone about things. Which is going to massively limit their ability to retool/replace all that production anyway. Pivoting to public infrastructure is not a fix either. Yeah, you can keep people employed digging ditches and what not; but Russia can't afford to do that; and unless the rest of the world wants to buy a bridge in Russia, it's not going to put any money into the government coffers either to help them afford it.

There really isn’t much incentive for companies to do that. The Russian government since the 90s is run by thieves, any business doing well not already connected to those thieves will be taken over and plundered. 

But pivot to what? The economy sucks already and if you pivot the production to civilian stuff you need buyers. Russians currently won't be able to buy a lot and outside of Russia there aren't a lot of countries that want to trade with them

Turds of a feather.

It's not ideological. It's geopolitical. BRICS countries only have one serious shared interest: not being economically marginalized by the US and EU. It gets them all to the table, but they can never agree on much because aside from that looming threat they don't actually share a lot of common goals.

Just like the orange man getting rid of smart people surrounding him. Surround yourself with dummies to *appear* to be the smartest. Edited - spelled surround wrong.

jail cost are significantly reduced too. prisoners make the best human wave soldiers.

They'll be employed for the rest of their lives... all two weeks of it.

I talk to a lot of Russians.  The breaking point with support seems to be blocking Telegram.  Even the two I speak to that have been largely supportive of the war are starting to crack. 

Putin learned his trade while working as a liaison to the Stasi, fittingly enough.

Indeed. A relative in the 1940s spent 5 years in gulag for writing an anti communist poem when he was in high school. He was released, came home to find everyone was gone (fled due to the war, the part of the family I descend from), and was sent back for another 5 years. Others, due to the timing, were conscripted and sent to the fronts, did not come home. The people have no ability to express opposing views within these systems.

Almost every independent study as hard as it is shows the same thing. The Russian population is severely detached from politics and feels zero responsibility for the state of things.

The same tzar that was overthrown by military? That one? Because russian military is just as on tight leash as Turkish army is after their failed coup.

He did take personal command in an ill thought out war, leading to his ouster.

Please, do a bit of research when you using this argument. Read about what led to what happened with Czar and his family. No revolution was ever done by regular people. Its always led by someone IN and WITH power, support, money and military forces.

The moment Vance gave Orban the kiss of death, I knew it was all over for him.

Someone said he has the opposite of the Midas Touch. Everything he touches turns to shit, the Mierdas Touch.

Can we somehow get JD Vance and Liz Truss in a room with Putin please?