Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 21

War time economy... if the war stops the bottom falls out of whatever economy they have left (it's an argument I've seen in other places). It's the stupidest economic model possible but that hasn't stopped him...

And the war agenda keeps the military too busy to coordinate against him.

While the war continues the outcome is still sort of in doubt... a real end that can't be spun as a victory will set up blood lust in the higher echelons.

If the war finishes he will have the remains of a disgruntled, hungover, maimed army back on his doorstep

Military commanders will also be pissed off, not least because it's the end of their gravy train of stealing taxpayers money and sodomizing their troops

And the public would have been expecting victory parades in denazified Kiev and might start wondering what their kids died for and why their rock hard bread and disgusting coffee got so expensive

IINM after wars, the russian military is always purged (and the most successful officers are the first to go).


I really don't think most russians care....

you are quite good at writing fiction cms: the fact is however that they in the upper echelons of the Russian army were stealing money alright, long before the war (this is why a big part of their truck fleet kept breaking tyres in the begining of the war, for example- there were many more examples - you can find them on quora.com)

I need to repeat what I wrote like half a year ago: Putin's plan for peace as of the middle of 2024 was conceding of four Ukrainian oblasts (which were largely held by Russians anyway and Ukraine not allowed to join NATO - it almost looks like Putin can receive what he wanted in Trump's plan for peace - either I am missing something from Trump's plan or Putin's mind has changed - and I am baffled by this change

yes I vaguely understand that Russia is in war economy mode and end of the war might mean sudden surge of unemployment especially if Russia doesn't get to trade with the west immediately after the war - maybe this is indeed what Putin fears: come economic troubles and no trade with the West someone may come up with an idea that they need to get rid of Putin to "show the world that Russia has changed" and it's ok to trade with her

ok - it looks like I am not that entirely baffled by current Putin's stance, anymore

the russian M.O. is to always ask for more....

@mafketis

ok - one big question remains (and I think Trump's staff ask themselves this question): what happens after Putin

- and I wonder if Putin understands that with each passing day of the war and his insistence on causing damage to Ukraine his situation gets more and more precarious (think: maybe now he could resing and say go retire in China but with each passing day of the war it gets less probable (does it actually)

Actually Russia has more nukes than the United States.


The bombs are intended for Zelensky, not Trump.

Zelensky states at a press conference: "Handing over any sovereign territories is out of the question." The same night, he orders a massive drone attack on Russia - 200+ drones.

Clearly - he thinks he can ride this out without American support. Where is American support most, most crucial? After all - Ukraine produces most of its own drones, produces a lot of artillery systems, and so on and so forth. Where can they not replace the Americans - at least for now? That's right - anti-air defenses. PATRIOT systems, Stinger MANPADS, air to air missiles for the F-16s and MiGs.

So in response to Zelensky's swarm attack of cheap makeshift drones made in some basement, he got hit the next day with a barrage of 200 Russian strikes. Instead of little drones, however, it consisted of cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and large drones with 100 KG payloads.

They hit right in the center of Kiev. The center of Kiev that was so well protected during 2023-2024 by the PATRIOTS.

The strikes are meant to rattle Zelensky, and shake his confidence.

It doesn't matter that Trump's deal is favorable to us, if the donkey Zelensky doesn't want to play. So he needs help and encouragement in arriving at the correct conclusion. Trump is a good fella, in closing his eyes at the Russian strikes - because he sees that Zelensky is still far away from reality and needs convincing.

The people of Ukraine blame Russia for the strikes, but they also blame Zelensky. Right now, the percent of people that think he's stubbornly refusing to end a war that's already lost is approximately 40%. The other 60% still stand by him and his policies. Two years ago, those numbers were probably 15% to 85%.

I was wondering why Zelensky doesn't want to end this war on Trump's terms (which are very much Putin's terms) - however I don't anymore: Zelensky sees that Russians can't seem to make any breakthrough in the Ukrainian front and that he is aware that Russian economy might collapse in a couple of months - I wonder now if you are aware of the precarious state of the Russian economy, Bobko (read my previous posts and those of mafketis, too)

The war that's already lost ? How many km from Pokrovsk are your crappy broke ass tanks ?

It was lost by the North Nigerians on their Day1 drunken shambles of an assault on Hostomel.

Imagine that! So craaazy!!!!

How can they blame the country that covered them in rubble or killed their mother!!!! Dont' they even want to be part of russia's glorious empire!!??

x.com/StratcomCentre/status/1915331980960420016

x.com/nexta_tv/status/1915315831824605284

Listen... it was supposed to collapse in 2022.

It's now 2025. Is it doing great? I wouldn't say so. Is it doing a lot better than "collapsing"? Certainly yes.

There are some economies, completely untouched by war - that are doing substantially worse than Russia's. Like Turkey, where inflation is at 40% or Argentina where it's at 55%. Yet despite this, many people right now manage to get themselves pretty excited about the state of the Argentinian economy. It's all a matter of perspective. When you have defaulted on your debt NINE TIMES, like Argentina has, then even 55% annual inflation and an empty central bank can feel like things are on the "up and up".

Is Russia headed for some potentially painful contraction following the end of the war. Quite possible. How far will it throw Russia's economy back? Potentially years. Will it throw Russia back to, for example, a 1999 level? Absolutely not, it's pretty much impossible unless there's a nuclear war (that's how poor we were in 1999).

At the same time, it's hard to convince voters and consumers that "not being as poor as they were in 1999" is a big win. They'll be upset, they'll be unhappy. Because people get used to good things quickly :)

Absolutely correct and even if the USA turns chicken and runs, Eurpopean nations can still support Ukraine to ultimate victory.
Check out what aid Sweden has just pledged......


And it's only going to get worse for Russia.


You made the point superbly.

Russia is losing this pointless and stupid war.

in March 2025 the Russian National Bank confirmed that it has sold over 50 per cent of their gold reserves - it is assumed that most of those 600 billion dollar worth of foreing currency reserves Russia had, were gone by then - inflation in recent months rose to 20 per cent (some analysts think that the Russian National Bank resorted to printing money) - current (rather recent developement) oil prices are very low which is a very unfortunate developement for the Russian economy (50 bucks per barrel is just 10 bucks more than the cost of extracting Russian oil) - when the war ends many people will look for jobs and at the same time there will be less of justification for spedning on the military equipment so expect a surge of unemployment - this doesn't look good for Russia if you ask me

@gumishu

Don't forget that half of that $600B was gone on the first day - 50% in one day. It still sits frozen in Belgium and in New York. The sky didn't fall, and the central bank continued doing its job, including buying and selling foreign exchange. It has managed to keep the ruble within a tight band. Gold reserves are going down, because we pay certain people for certain things with gold. I think you can guess who those counterparties are, and why they prefer gold. The other reason is that the gold reserves had become too big for an economy of Russia's size, and the risk to the CBRF's holdings was becoming substantial. Russia is a large world producer of gold, and the Russian central bank was for a long time the world's largest buyer of gold.

Basically - gold is being spent on shady deals, and there was too much gold. Otherwise, the other structural parts of the reserves are looking good and sitting pretty. Recently, with all the nice things Trump has been saying about us, the Ruble rallied enormously - so the CB hasn't had to spend any FX on defending it. Instead they have been selling rubles and buying back fx.

Oil prices being low really is a sh*t piece of news, no way around it. At the same time, oil doesn't play the same all-important role it used to play in the Russian economy during the 90s and 00s. Oil and gas together account for about 30% of federal budget revenues, and approx. 15-20% of GDP. That's a lot, and a lot more than in the US, but still its not Saudi Arabia or something where nearly 100% of the budget depends on oil export tariffs.


This is actually a good thing, for which the central bank of Russia has been waiting for, for a very long time. Russia has a record low unemployment rate right now. A lot of people left. A lot of people died. And a huge amount of people have gone to work for the defense industry. The defense industry is attracting people by paying big salaries, in many cases salaries that the private sector cannot compete with. This reverses on its head the entire problem of the 90s and 00s.

At the same time, Putin and Co are not willing to drastically increase immigration. In fact - they are making a lot of noise about cracking down on it. It's not a very popular narrative, if people begin to think that Putin is killing Russians en masse in order to replace them with Kyrgyz and Tajiks.

So what you have is an extremely tight labor market. This means salaries have been exploding. Russians' real income growth has far outstripped inflation. As a further consequence, it heats up further inflation. The Central Bank tries to tame it by raising interest rates to insanely high levels, and it works - but this kills all normal Russian businesses in the process who can't afford to borrow in this climate. So... I am very happy that my compatriots are earning more money, buying more consumer goods, and building more houses - but it comes at a great expense.

So when people come back, and the defense factories start laying people off - this will be a great thing. Salary growth will hopefully slow down significantly. It will be easier to find people than right now, hopefully.

In general - there is no way around opening wide the gates of immigration, if you want Russia to grow fast.

Nobody wants Russia to grow at all, let alone fast.

I somehow don't believe that explanation - the Russian gold reserves were at their highest in 2022 and 2023 - btw Polish gold reserves are now at over 400 tonnes

You are able to confirm what I wrote for yourself. Russia was indeed the world's largest buyer of gold for nearly a decade (maybe more, if I'm wrong). It was also the largest producer, or second largest producer of gold in the world depending on the year. Maybe China is bigger now.

There was no reason to buy so much gold. It was just Putin's paranoia. Some countries sold all of their gold reserves entirely - and some did well out of this, and others didn't (Britain an example of somebody who sold cheap gold right before it skyrocketed). But the point is, that those countries that had more of their Central Bank reserves stashed in US Treasuries or German Bunds, or even just cash - usually earned substantially more money than the CBRF. Our reserves could have been a trillion dollars instead of $600B if Putin's management of the economy was not so conservative.

The reason gold reserves can become too big, is if they are too big for your size. Russia, even now, has bigger gold reserves than China or India. I believe its been in the top 5 countries for gold reserves for a while now. But our economy is much smaller than theirs. Our trade is structured differently.

If we keep 20-30% of our overall reserves in the form of gold, and tomorrow the gold price collapses by 20% - who will be responsible for this? The Central Bank of Russia. It is their job, to ensure stable growth of our reserves, and protect them from wild swings. These are the reserves of the entire country, like a family piggy bank. Saved away for a rainy day.

It is not wise or prudent to sit on a mountain of gold like Smaug. In the chart below, look at the far right column. You can see Russia is significantly over concentrated in gold in comparison to everybody except Americans, French, Italians, and Germans. Problem is - those are Dollar and Euro people that don't need fx reserves.

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Here??? With the morons who hate as a substitute for rational thinking?

Look at this moron...


How do you debate this specimen?

Let me try...

Hey, maf, find me one Russian who said: I want a war. If Putin starts waging peace I will hate him and vote the SOB out!

Hey, Gman, here is another example of a moron who, from the safety of his basement, thinks that armies love wars.

How do you deal with an idiot like this?

You do have a point. They"re either LARPING, acutely ideologically constained or have the minds of 15 year olds.

Who pretends to know the innermost secrets of world leaders or proclaim two sentence generalisations about a whole population? Bizzare.

Wait you do that too. Lol fail