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They say russian imports are down 50%. While russian exports are up 64%. Therefore russia's GDP will suffer a collapse of 30% by the end of 2022.

As far as I know russia's food production has risen annually which has decreased demand for food imports. Russia's imports should fall naturally as it seeks to become more independent under sanctions. Russia has lived under economic sanctions for so many years I don't know what sanctions they propose to impose on them that have not already been done.

Russia exporting more than it imports may also represent the opposite of a trade deficit. Which could be a good arrangement depending on who you ask.

China and germany being named as russia's largest trading partners is another surprise considering natural gas and oil exports to the EU have typically been named as the route to crashing russia's economy.

I think it's easy to see though, that these sanctions aren't just hurting Russia's economy. It's hurting the West's. The fact that rising living costs has happened off the back of these sanctions isn't any happy accident. Certainly, isn't solely down to the pandemic either. The thing is, the sanctions were not universally supported because a lot of those countries relied on importing Russia's gas, electric, and what have you.

So, those countries that significantly relied on them are now starting to feel the pinch, just as much as Russia if not more.

Do you ever post anything besides Russian propaganda? It might be easy to think this is your full time paid job, putting on an image and trying to counteract the huge damage that Russia has done to the world by launching the biggest war in Europe since the end of World War 2. It's one thing to post occasional good news about different countries, but it is clear you have a tunnel vision mindset of "Post Russia Good, Post America Bad" when this is meant to be a forum about all sorts of economic related news.

Imports are down because nobody wants to sell to Russia anymore, not out of Russian choice, as Putin has caused untold suffering to many innocent people - Ukrainians and Russians alike. You are representing exports falsely as it is purely based on the increase FROM BELOW ZERO of the price of oil during Covid, yet again misleading what is really happening in this situation. Oil and gas are propping up this delusion but require no real skills beyond extraction. A free and civilized country engages in all sorts of other productive business pursuits which drive forward innovation.

It has been over two months Russia attacked Ukraine, sanctions followed, but the war is still two months old and counting, more sanctions are still being prepared i am sure, but honestly it does not look like it has had the type of impact the Eu and other countries thought it would have, Russia are still going on with the war, meaning they are still doing their economic business fine, maybe not as well as before, but they will be happy it is not just them that is suffering from their actions, but a lot of other countries. It is getting to that point that we must have to agree that sanctions can't end this war, or force Russia to stop, something more stringent has to be done.

Another sanction approved today. Around 90% of the oil imports will be banned along the next few months from Russia into Europe. This is pretty much what brought Iran to the worst crisis in its recent history.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61638860https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61638860



This has only started.

It's easier said than done! When the import of a country is down, it means two things -

1. The country is on the way of becoming independent
2. Their forex reserves are saved from being depleted faster

These are the indicators of a strong economy and not a weak one. Russia has been supplying around 14% of world's oil and gas requirement since long. So it is not very easy to make them bend down in the face of sanctions.

Most hilariously when the sanctions have been imposed by a country responsible for most number of wars in the history of humankind.

The world must end of dollar dominance which gives US an upper hand on almost everything.

Just a correction: The sanctions have been imposed by more than 20 countries. I do not debate your argument in the sense that US and some European nations have a bad track record in regards to peace.

Of course, the wish of satan was to ruin the economy with the sanctions to starve them of fund, see them suffer and possibly protest against Putin/government (for regime change). Well, I'm convinced the opposite happened as the sanctions heavily backfired as was predicted before they began. The strength of Russia ruble is one of important proof to this, the increase in income for Russians, increase in wheat productions, etc.
I see the economy doing even better as Russia Influence expands globally.

I believe if Russia's economy fails more and more, there might be a Black Swan that's getting itself ready to emerge, and show itself to everyone's surprise/shock. Will it be World War III? I don't know. Naseem Taleb didn't use the expression Black Swan to define some that would predictable. If it's indeed to be a Black Swan, we will never know, nor will it be predicted. We can guess though. 8)

The western sanctions will hit the Russian economy in the long term, the Russian oil prices are 30% lower than the western oil prices.
Russia will have to sell more oil, gas and food to China, but the prices will be low, so the export revenue won't bring bigger profits for the Russian economy. The biggest negative effect of the sanctions will be the technological deterioration of the Russian economy, which will happen slowly, in a matter of several years.
Nobody is denying the fact, that the western sanctions will hit the western economies ae well. This is the side effect of globalization. The countries and their economies have become codependent on each other. The sanctions will end the state of codependency and create a more fragmented and divided global economy.

It's worth adding that somehow, this was easy. What are Russian exports besides oil and gas? There's nothing Russian-made that I'd like to buy. Even Swedish or Polish vodka is better than the Russian one. Russia has a border with China, South Korea, countries which make plenty of desirable products, but Russia hasn't managed to make a single one.

If Russia had chosen to develop its industry instead of relying on raw materials, it would not be in the mess it's in.

I don't think Russian economy will be destroyed just because of western sanctions, maybe in other respects I can agree with you like sports, tourists or others, but from an economic point, I doubt that Russia will be destroyed, right now the EU is imposing sanctions on exports of gas, oil and minerals from Russia, but did you know that in fact it could backfire for EU countries?
Russia the third largest country as a producer of gas, oil and minerals for European countries and if they stopped shipping gas, oil and minerals wouldn't it make it difficult for the industry in the European continent to run?
I think as a country with oil and gas producers of course it is not difficult for Russia to find other importers besides China and I don't think China will be able to dictate to Russia to sell its gas and oil at cheap prices because it is clear that it has violated the mutual agreement later, even at the Union Summit Europe yesterday in Brussels, it seems that the cohesiveness of the European Union in carrying out sanctions against Russia has begun to crumble, even Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic have begun to reject the sanctions because of their dependence on Russian oil and gas so far.

This war has actually exposed Russian economy as raw material based and this has not helped them this time. They are relying on China for buying of oil and gas and to get finished product from them. This is not healthy for an economy. The amount of dependency that Russia will witness after this war will further collapse the economy because when you can't produce 60% percentage of what you use to an extent then you will have to rely on other countries then inflation will set as there won't be foreign reserves.

In a deceived world the economy is failing even when the President & Russia currency show otherwise.
I thought a characteristics of a healthy/strong economy is Strong currency or is this nolonger correct?

Anyway, I'm not surprised as alot used to believe that Russia was being defeated in the war against globalist in Ukraine.

I have already written about how Russia is in a much better position because it was preparing for war and sanctions even before it started tearing Ukraine apart by attacking Crimea and supporting uprisings in Ukrainian regions along its western borders. It's like playing poker games where you know all the cards of your opponents and you can only lose money if you're a complete fool.

Even if sanctions work, no government in Russia, if we look through history, cared too much for the common man and he has always been a collateral victim for some major goals. In other words, Russia has enough cannon fodder to be able to fight for a very long time, whether 50 000 or 500 000 Russian soldiers die for Moscow doesn't matter anyway - most of the soldiers are from poor and rural parts of Russia anyway.

Another way of looking at it is the EU exports to Russia was cut by 50% which is also visible as inflation and soaring prices all around EU.

What crisis? You should seriously stop reading propaganda specially from BBC :D

There has been inflation in Iran but not a crisis and the inflation also had very little to do with sanctions. It was because of an incompetent government printing money non-stop. Otherwise prices were mostly stable for the past year ever since the previous president's term ended and new one took office. That is despite the increasing sanctions against Iran.

IMF puts Iran's economy as 20th largest economy, Iran's GDP is the 17th biggest in the world. And both of these are excluding the billions of dollars of trade that Iran doesn't publicize due to sanctions!
On top of that as the country with the second largest gas reserves and large oil supplies with the soaring energy prices the country's revenue has increased significantly.

The war actually took another twist. Now US is looking like coming out to show clear sympathy for Ukraine and giving out more dangerous weapon. Who knows what Russia has in store in terms of weapons, the latter days will determine how it will all happen as Putin clearly warned biden to stay off. Russia however has clearly shown that survival is possible despite severe sanctions.

I don't think that Russia is in much better position, it's just that their government doesn't really care how an average Russian citizen lives so maybe they are in better position as they don't have to worry about public opinion.


Sanctions won't work due simple reason that Putin doesn't give a fuck about his own people, and it's not like they can overthrown him on elections like in the west so in the end it's just a waste of time(and money). After all, we saw how sanctions worked in North Korea, Cuba etc. And it's not like Russians don't have a history of dictators making their life miserable so for them that's business as usual.

Those were because Russia was doing their countermeasure on all those sanctions, there is no way that they are going to sit still while wagering war on Ukraine doing nothing on their economy aspect. For now, it might not seems like it is taking any effect on their economy but there is no guarantee that their countermeasure will be effective for years as I expect that all those sanctions will last for atleast 2 years

Well then. Here is the 6th package of sanctions and agreed. A particularly important section is the embargo on the purchase of Russian oil. No, of course this is not a total ban, it is a partial one (we will talk about this a little later, after other expected events). But even a partial embargo, and this is in "weight" terms, about $10 billion a year lost, is already good. This will act as a small cut tactic. This tactic allows without strong costs and effort, slowly but GUARANTEED, to bleed the enemy.
The second piece of news is from June 1, the suicide bomber, Gazprom Export, promises to stop gas supply, from June 1 (today), to the following countries - the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark.
The share of Russian gas in purchases of these countries:
Netherlands - up to 30%
Germany - approximately 50%
Denmark - below 10% (more precisely, I did not find the data). Denmark activates gas production in the North Sea.
The Netherlands and Denmark have active LNGs.
Yes, Germany will probably be the most difficult of all, but it's better than financing Russian terrorists and fascists. I am sure, rather quickly (no, not days of course), these countries will receive alternative gas, smoothly replacing supplies from Russia. Even now, Russia will start receiving less money to finance international terrorism, and in 1-2 years, this flow will dry up to almost 0 levels. No, Russia will continue to sell gas to China and India, but this will be a price at the cost level, i.e. will pay back, at best, only production, and there will be no more talk about profit. The main thing is that the process of refusing hydrocarbons from the hands of terrorists has been launched and is gaining momentum!

^^^^ Gazprom has cut supplies only to Orsted (Danmark). They haven't cut any of their supplies to Germany or Netherlands. And in any case the exports to Danmark was minimal, as it is a very small country. Shell's contract to supply Russian gas to Germany stands cancelled, but it represents a small share of overall exports to that country. And as per the latest figures from Gazprom, they exported 61 billion cubic meters of gas to countries outside the former Soviet Union for the first five months of this year. This represents a decline of 27.6%, but due to the increased prices Gazprom has earned 10x more revenues when compared to the same period last year.

I was reading in news that Gazprom has cut off gas supply to Netherlands and Germany. Moreover supply to shell will also be suspended as shell is refusing to pay in Russian national currecny. This conflict is now more about who will buy Russian oil and gas, little attention is paid to end this conflict.

From my point of view, the more interesting news for today, although little noticed, is the restriction on the export of inert gases (http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/0001202205310029?index=3&rangeSize=1) (argon, neon, etc.) from Russia. They seem to be used in the production of microelectronics or something. This is a non-obvious and rather strong lever of Russia's influence on the world economy.

As always, Putin and his mafiosi will keep on living the good life, but Russian people will suffer more and more. What strikes me the most is the food. What Russians eat is just terrible. All processed food sold in Russia would be just illegal in the EU, made with chemicals, and tasting awful, and if you go to the market in Saint Petersburg, they sell food from EU where you can read that the expiration date was 2 years ago. I'm really happy not to live there, and to be able to afford quality olive oil, and fresh organic food.

That one was a tit-for-tat measure. As a result of sanctions, there are restrictions on the import of microchips to Russia. And in retaliation, Russia banned the export of inert gases (they supply 30% of the global output), without which the microchip manufacturing can't proceed. There is already an acute shortage in the microchip market, and this latest move is going to make it much worse. Apart from Russia, Ukraine also used to be one of the leading suppliers of inert gases. But their output is also down, as a result of war.

As far as I understand, Russia controls 30% of the supply of neon and another 40% was controlled by Ukraine, and the remaining 30% is controlled by China. Now Ukraine does not control anything and the price of neon has increased nine times. In principle, it is possible to replace the dropped supplies, neon is a by-product of steel production, but this is not instantaneous, energy-intensive and not environmentally friendly.

The greatest example of this could be the war against Nazi Germany in where about 10 million Russians died, and 5 million Nazis died, and yet Nazis lost. Imagine losing 2x more people and still "winning" the war. That should be good enough of a reason for anyone to see what is the situation is like for Russia. They could have attacked, the dollar could be 300 ruble per dollar, the people would be starving, and yet Russia would have still go on.

This doesn't show how "powerful" they are, it just provides a proof that Putin is a bad person, and historically they have been ruled by bad people who did not cared about their people (even though it worked out for the better in ww2).

That a country exports more than it imports could suggest a lot of things. Yes, it could be seen as a good arrangement. But it could also be seen as bad.

In Russia's case, the economy is largely dependent on crude oil, petroleum, gas, and coal that it exports to other countries. In this arrangement, partners are everything. The moment these partner countries say, we're not accepting your products anymore, is also the moment the economy suffers.

And the way Russia is behaving right now, it is losing a lot of country friends, most of which are trade partners. China could increase its demand and it has already done so in the face of sanctions imposed on Russia, but is it enough to make up for the entire EU's demand?

Freezing accounts and economic sanctions by the US and the EU against Russia are hostile actions, friends and partners do not act like that.

China and India will buy all free energy resources from Russia, and Europe will freeze next winter and be left without industry. ;D

There is no denying that the sanctions will have an effect. Not the immediate one that would stop the war (as most people wanted), but something that would be felt sometime after but would be more long-lasting. However, that does not come without cost to the ones perpetrating those sanctions, and that shows the true cracks of global capitalism and how dependency comes at high risk whenever things like this happen. So we are all gonna feel this one sooner or later.

OK.. that means that the manufacturers are now at the mercy of China. Either they will pay 20x or 30x more, or they will shut down the factories. Already there is an acute shortage of microchips in the market and automakers are in a very tricky position. Any further reductions or delays will be catastrophic to the industry. Back in 2021, the automotive industry lost around $210 billion as a result of microchip shortage. And for this year, the losses may be even more. These numbers are absolutely startling. The Western nations started a trade war to satisfy their own ego. Now they will suffer as a result of it.

Saying usa and EU are peace promoter in the world is biggest lie joke. The point where world stands today is because of usa and EU wars which they started just for there own gains. USA and EU are doing dirty tactics once again by supping arms to ukarine and imposing sanctions on Russia while they live happily in there own countries.

About inert gases. An alternative could be supplies from Ukraine :) Only one of the companies producing such gases can put on the market: Neon - 70,000 m3, Xenon - 480 m3, Krypton - 6000 m3, Argon - 12,000 tons . I will clarify - Ukraine provides about half of the world's demand for neon :)
For other gases, Russia supplies no more than 30% to the market. I do not think that this will cause global problems. Temporary - I agree. But Russia will always lose this market as well. Understand that imposing restrictions from the normal world in relation to terrorists is just a search for replacement. And the restrictions on the part of terrorists on the sale of their resources, which were in demand by the world, is a loss of the market. Like it or not, it's a fact :)

More interesting news:
FT: UK to ban insurance for ships carrying Russian oil
The UK and the EU have agreed to a ban on insuring ships carrying Russian oil. It is reported by the Financial Times. Thus, Russia will be deprived of access to the vital insurance market of Lloyd's of London.

This means that Moscow's ability to export crude oil will be severely limited, and Russian suppliers will have to look for an alternative to British insurance in other, smaller markets. The ban on insurance of oil ships has become part of the sixth package of EU sanctions, writes the Financial Times. As the newspaper notes, such a decision will also increase pressure on global oil markets.

Do you know what that means? :)

Oil tankers can cause major environmental damages if there's an oil spill. There's only a handful of companies willing to insure oil shipments, and they're British or Swiss. There's always a black market, the islamic state was known to smuggle oil in Syria, but if you want to sell a lot of oil at market price, you've got to do it right, with a registered and properly insured tanker. Serious buyers will require that.

Oil spills are very rare and the risk is similar with pipeline oil exports as well. And by now, regimes such as Iran, Venezuela and Russia, who don't have good relations with the West, have learnt how to circumvent the sanctions. Iran for example is relying on stealth shipments and ship-to-ship transfer to avoid detection. A few weeks ago, there was a high level meeting between Iranian and Russian officials on this topic. As long as the prices remain in the $110-120 range and demand is high, Russia is not going to face much issue in exporting it's oil.

Let's see what the reaction of the market will be to the loss of two-thirds of the total volume of neon at once.

I think this means that Europe is trying to fence itself off from Russia with an iron curtain, although this directly threatens its own energy security. The lease of a tanker for the transportation of liquefied gas has already increased by a third from 80 to 120 thousand dollars per day with a contract for a year.

It is so interesting to communicate with you! :)

1. Tell me - are you all right with arithmetic? I don’t want to offend you .. but 2/3 of 100% of the market is about 67%. Those. In your opinion, Russia, which supplied 30% of neon to the world market, is this equal to 67%? Are you seriously ? :)
But I will support you in your remark - let's see how the market will be rebuilt in connection with another fact proving the unpredictability of Russia as a supplier.

2. I think that Britain simply imposed additional sanctions against the international terrorist to reduce his ability to finance his criminal regime.
In your opinion, the court that passes sentence on a criminal, in the form of imprisonment (restriction of freedom and the possibility of committing crimes) - threaten themselves with self-isolation from the criminal?! :)

Ukraine stopped supplying neon to the market at the very beginning of the special operation. The share of Ukraine was about 40% and then became zero. Russia's share was about 30% and has now also dropped sharply due to the export ban. As a result, just about two-thirds of the total fell out, everything is in order with arithmetic.

You may also be interested to know that Ukraine did not produce neon itself, but purified Russian. For the production of microelectronics, high-purity neon is needed.

As westerners always do, they cut the branch in which they are sitting in. First they restrict oil and gas imports from Russia, thereby harming their own manufacturing units. Now the factories in Europe can't compete with those in the United States and China. On top of that, they are importing refined petroleum products from Indian oil firms, paying a premium. Now automobile manufacturing is going to suffer, as a result of shortage in the microchip sector. For sometime, the citizens are not going to realize this, because the mainstream media will try their best in hiding these facts. But sooner or later, people are going to rebel against rising expenses.

In my opinion, the Russian economy will not collapse due to the imposition of Western sanctions.  

However, Russia is threatened with the "archaization" of the economy.  

At the same time, cars, trains, planes, and trains were produced in the USSR.  All this functioned without the use of modern electronics.  The Russians have the opportunity to gradually restore their heavy industry and even machine tool building. The economy will function.

However, in the field of microelectronics and modern technologies, Russia are hopelessly behind the countries of the Western world.

Microchips and modern electronic components will anyhow land in Russia. The only difference is that they will be smuggled from China and the Russians will be forced to pay a premium for it. The Russians themselves are not going to bother much, as long as they are earning $20 to $25 billion every month from the sale of fossil fuels. A Russian minister recently proposed reducing the crude oil production from 10 million barrels to 7 million barrels a day, to avoid selling oil in discount. Even now they are earning $80 to $90 per barrel, which is much higher than the level in 2021.

Both suspended and launched, production is not in the combat zone, as well as a significant part of the raw materials sources (industries).
And now bother to provide evidence that all the neon produced by Ukraine was just a post-treatment of the Russian one? But just not links to fake generators like RushToday or other fake media from Russia? :)

In Ukraine, two companies prior to the start of the operation were cleaning Russian neon for the needs of microelectronics - Cryoin in Odessa and Ingaz in Mariupol. I think Ukraine will hardly be able to launch a company in Mariupol in the foreseeable future, there are also doubts about Odessa.

It is not difficult to confirm this information with a link, it is more difficult to find a link that is not affiliated with Russia and which you can trust.

For example here (https://www.abc.es/economia/abci-tridente-clave-nueva-economia-esta-amenazado-guerra-ucrania-202205300145_noticia.html) is an article in a Spanish newspaper.

Quote from the article at the link, highlighted by me.

The article smells very strongly, no, not for biased, but absolutely about the Russian. The result of the article - well, where are you without Russia!? Would they lie if the truth was reprinted in Russian media :)
https://inosmi.ru/20220531/resursy-254354103.html

By the way, there is not a word about the fact that Russian resources are the main raw material for all neon production in Ukraine. It only says that 1 out of 2 plants supplied products from the Russian steel industry. "Ukraine did not produce neon itself, but purified Russian - your words"? Maybe you didn't understand the question? Ok, I repeat once again - indicate a trustworthy source containing verified information that everything, as you indicated, Ukrainian production works on Russian raw materials, and without it it cannot produce neon? Did you mean that in your original post? If not, then there is no particular problem, only part of the raw materials for 1 plant "fell off", which can be compensated by supplies from other countries - Germany, Slovenia, Italy ... Or are there steel mills only in Russia? :)

I can only add, I stand by the truth in any situation, that Ukrainian companies, in some cases, partially used Russian raw materials, both for part of their needs, and on a contract basis, for Russian producers, performing post-treatment of primary raw materials (a by-product of metallurgy) . But Russian raw materials were not of any critical importance. By the way, you forgot to mention that the article says "Ukraine provides half of the world's neon supplies." Half is 50%, or do you think differently? :)

The plant located in Odessa will be launched. The plant in Mariupol, after being freed from terrorists, will also be put into operation - the country and business need money.
I am not ready to say how much the Neon plant suffered from terrorists, but if it cannot quickly enter into operation, it is possible that production will be increased in Odessa. Yes, there will be a noticeable decrease in supplies, but the world market will now perfectly understand that dealing with such terrorist suppliers as Russia should never be done again.

I did not go deep into the technology of neon production, as far as I understand, this is not a very environmentally friendly event. Therefore, in principle, its production can be established within a year in many countries of the world, but there is no queue of those who want to. In fact, at present, inert gases are a strong lever of pressure from Russia on unfriendly countries, in the future this situation may change, but now it is so.

I also cannot say that I am the chief engineer of the neon production workshop, but there is a quite accessible procedure for obtaining neon from the by-products of metallurgical production. In fact, neon is not mined, it is one of the by-products that is formed as a result of the liquefaction and separation of ... simple air, in the metallurgical industry. The primary raw material is a neon-hel mixture, which is a by-product of the above process.

But the separation of helium and neon is carried out due to adsorption and condensation. The adsorption method is based on the ability of neon, unlike helium, to be adsorbed by activated carbon cooled with liquid nitrogen. The condensation method is based on neon freezing when the mixture is cooled.
It doesn't look like any toxic inhibitors or additives are used here, it's just that the production is very specific and the equipment is not cheap.

Of course, in Russia they can strain themselves, restore the old technologies of the last century and be content with domestic goods that the leading countries have not used for half a century. Russian soldiers who robbed civilian homes in Irpen and Bucha in Ukraine were surprised at the toilet bowls in private houses and the interiors in these houses in general. They don't know these modern conveniences. Of course, not everyone in Russia lives like this. In Moscow, St. Petersburg and several other cities they live there like the rest of the civilized world.
Therefore, I don’t understand one thing: why was it necessary to attack a peaceful neighboring country at all, destroy all the infrastructure there, kill its civilians, and for such pleasure be subjected to harsh international sanctions that isolate Russians from the civilized world and set Russia back in development for many decades back. At the same time, here now to prove that Russia in its current difficult situation will be able to survive. Do Russians take pleasure in hurting others, or in making life much more difficult for them? What kind of masochistic nation is this? Of course, why be surprised if after that everything Russian is being destroyed in Ukraine in order not to hear and communicate with Russians in the future.

US has gas, US has money. Europe has money and Russia has gas. US is pushing war. Russia is saving its leftover ego. Europe wants to be US little brother and Ukraine is burning.. Russian economy will batter down, inflation will pull down Europe. US might finally win over communists But at the cost of unstable Europe.  Who will benefit from this? May be china and middle east, both producers of goods and oil.

All European sanctions that are directed against Russia will harm Europe more than Russia.
If Europe wants gas independence, then it will require billions of investments and at least 7-10 years to build infrastructure. And then they will be depending on the USA.

__
Show me at least one communist in Russia

I am not sure this prediction of -30% by the end of the year is legit, to be honest, but it's good if it is. That being said, if exports are up by so much, why is the prediction so negative?
I think that the Western countries want to show and prove that their sanctions are serious and are working, while Ukraine is pressuring them for imposing much more because the idea is to help stop the war, and if Russia keeps going with the war, it means the current sanctions aren't enough. Also, while initially it looked like Russian economy was exploding, they managed to stabilize the ruble and 4 months into the war they can still afford it, although the consumer prices did grow significantly for Russians, so it's not like sanctions didn't do anything.

If I get it right, if you sell 100 of something for 1 dollar each, but then the prices change and you sell 50 of that same thing but for 10 each, you will make a lot more money. This is what happened to Russia, sure they are probably selling a lot less, but they are selling for a lot more money. Look at their fiat, their fiat (ruble) got a lot more powerful against dollar, why? Because they are doing fine and this war didn't hurt the general economy of the nation. One key reason is the fact that oil went up, but another and probably even bigger reason is the fact that the whole world was filled with oligarchs and russian money, and all of those people turned their money into ruble and stored it in Russia. So all those tens of billions, probably hundreds of billions of dollars that was used by russian wealthy people all around the world, all went into ruble to make it stronger, wasn't the purpose and they just wanted to put it somewhere safe, but it did helped ruble for sure.

Understand a simple fact - Russia imagined itself, for some reason, as a significant country, and decided to "bring everything back", in fact, to recreate one of the most bastard states - the USSR, and gain control over all the former countries, the socialist camp, during the Cold War. As always, Russia fights only against the weakest, those who cannot stand up for themselves, this is such "Russian heroism." If not, give at least 1 example, Russian attacks on some country that would be commensurate in power? But I'm sure no one will give a single example ...
So, for some reason, they decided that Ukraine is such a suitable object, all the more so as an example of how to deal with thieves presidents. This scared Putin very much, because. for him, the overthrow will be even worse than for Gaddafi ... And if now in Ukraine, by the forces of Ukrainians and Western partners, the new brown plague of the 21st century is not defeated, rashism, rashism will go further west. The next ones will be the Baltic countries, Poland, Georgia again, and many others. And one of the main ways to destroy rashism is precisely economic sanctions, which should destroy the economy of the terrorist country, as much as possible and preferably irreversibly. Well, or soon famine, war, hundreds of thousands of deaths will come to other countries, on the bayonets of rashism. The choice is ours, what we choose - peace, tranquility, order, creation or death, devastation, deepest stagnation, and other "joys of rashism"

The country has adapted to sanctions and find loopholes around them. But the Russian citizens have not. You can't just close down all US markets in the area and expect them to suddenly switch their preferences to closer-to-home alternatives.

It's is both funny and sad to see how Ukraine was abused by them with the promise of help while in truth they didn't do anything. Even the sanctions against Russia was a joke and they were promising actual military involvement if Russia invaded!!!

Some argue that Ukraine wasn't part of NATO but those people should check out what Lithuania was told. They basically told them that if Russia invaded their country they won't help them at all. In best case scenario they would send some aid after 180 days. By that time nothing would be left of Lithuania!!!
Even funnier than that is Finland and Sweden wanting to join this useless treaty. :D

That's biggest mistake Ukarine did i.e. they rely on USA promise. USA has many times betrayed his friends and its better to stay away from USA fake friendship. Every country should look for his own interest. Even if the war in Ukraine stopped, the damage done to infrastructure will take years to rebuild.
In 1971, same was done to Pakistan by USA. They keep on saying that we will send military support to Pakistan to help insurgency in west Pakistan (now Bangladesh) but that military aid never arrived.

You are slightly distorting the actual events. Ukraine has successfully resisted a full-scale military invasion of Russia for 125 days. To date, according to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the following have been destroyed:
- 35,250 Russian soldiers and officers,
- 1567 tanks,
- 3704 armored vehicles,
- 217 aircraft,
- 185 helicopters,
- 778 artillery systems,
- 243 multiple launch rocket systems,
- 102 air defense systems,
- 2589 automotive equipment,
- 636 UAVs,
- 14 ships and boats, etc.
It can be said that in four months Russia has not achieved any significant military successes in Ukraine. However, the "second army of the world" has already lost a significant part of its military potential in Ukraine. This happened not only because of the professionalism of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but also because of the serious assistance from the NATO countries. True, Ukraine expects more, and it is slowly doing so.

NATO has never promised Ukraine real military assistance with its soldiers, because it does not want the Third World War to break out.

The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry recently criticized a long-established plan for NATO military assistance to the country in the event of a surprise Russian invasion. He allows the occupation of this small country and the expulsion of the aggressor for 180 days. Having seen what the Russians are doing on the territory of Ukraine, there, of course, they do not want to fall under occupation, even temporarily. Therefore, they demand to reconsider this plan.

Indirectly, the US and Russia are actually at war now, but Europe and Ukraine are the victims...

with the scarcity of European oil and gas, countries that did not intervene in the war, such as China and the Middle East, which had stable gas reserves, had massive purchases from Europe. this will last a long time because the US continues to push Europe to hold on to the sanctions they imposed on Russia.

You could imagine it as a useless treaty, there are many many Russian trolls all around the world and we are used to you guys and it's fine. But, the reality is that that "useless" treaty is the reason why Russia can't do whatever they want with western nations, and yes they may have attacked Ukraine, but where do you think all those drones and guns and armors and food and all the other things came from?

Even though Ukraine is not officially in Nato, we are talking about TENS OF BILLIONS of dollars worth of help to Ukraine during this war. Sure maybe American soldiers didn't suit up and started to shoot Russians, but they certainly sent a lot of guns and armor and many other things, including food and clothes as well, which is more than enough to say they helped.

The headline states that exports are on a decline, but your message body states that exports are up 64%, so I'm a bit confused by what you mean here.


Lol. If you think that an country, especially one of the size Russia can become independent of all other nations, you're sorely mistaken.  No country can become a world leader without interacting with other nations.  Do you realize the importance of importing and exporting, which would not be possible if they are truly independent. 

Your hate for the US is clear, and it's blinding you from the truth.  Why must the world end the dominance of the dollar?  Do you not realize this was done by everyone else making it the worlds reserve currency?  It's not like the US said "hey we want the worlds reserve currency and so then it must be".   The United States has the worlds best economy, and this is not changing anytime soon. Sorry, as much as you clearly don't want to hear that or believe it, it's the truth.

"Most hilariously when the sanctions have been imposed by a country responsible for most number of wars in the history of humankind". This is not true.  Also, many wars the US has been in has been due to the aiding of other nations. 

LOL.... BBC has given the figure of around ~4,000 deaths for the Russian Armed Forces and PMC Wagner (DNR/LNR lost another 4,000 men, but these are Ukrainian citizens). On the other hand, more than 30,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed so far, and around 15,000 have been taken prisoner. Western media has been telling for a long time that Russia is running out of ammunition and cruise missiles. And now the Ukrainians are complaining that they are being out-shelled and cruise missiles are raining on their cities.

In the Soviet Union at that time there was a very modern production of products and equipment, perhaps due to the fact that it was aimed at the domestic market, it was so specific. I really agree with you that Russia will no longer catch up with the world of microprocessor engineering, and this is sad.

I hope Ukraine can resist the invaders and take back their country but the actual events you think I'm distorting is that Russia has achieved most of its goals. Parts of Eastern Ukraine and the the strategically important South is already occupied, a little more and they'll reach Moldova finishing the first phase of the plan which is completely cutting Ukraine off from Black Sea.

Probably all the Spanish people protesting in the streets these days in the anti-NATO rally who think it is a not only a useless treaty but it is tearing their country apart are also Russian trolls :D

About 40 years ago we were invaded and were being bombed every day. Meanwhile thousands of kilometers away another country that we consider a friend was invaded, they lost half of their country, their military fell very fast and the capital was surrounded and it was about to fall too. We sent them a handful of military experts (while we were still fighting ourselves against 80 countries) and shortly after they liberated their whole country by kicking the invaders out.
We are talking about ZERO dollars here.

The point is that it's important who your friends are, whether they are fake ones pretending to spend BILLIONS in aids or real ones that effectively help.
In fact our Red Crescent (that's the Iranian humanitarian organization) has been sending all the help we can manage to Ukraine from day one without hesitation or expectation. That is despite the fact that Ukraine is part of the same coalition against Iran that has imposed more than 5000 sanctions against Iranians preventing us from importing any kind of medical supplies whatsoever for decades.

Be careful when you use the term "invader". There was a recent video posted by France24 YouTube channel. It showed residents of Lysychansk celebrating the Russian victories in Severodonetsk and Zolote and were openly cursing the Ukrainian soldiers. It is clear that at least a part of the Eastern Ukrainians view the UAF as the invaders and the Russians as liberators. Without adequate local support, Russia would have struggled to hold on to such huge swathes of territory. Despite the initial rumors, residents of Kherson and Donbass are not rioting against the Russian rule. 

I do understand the fact that nearly half of Ukraine are pro-Russia (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5400359.msg60271433#msg60271433), I also understand the reasons for the conflict including how Ukraine had become a security threat (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5400359.msg60368034#msg60368034) not just to Russia but to the whole world. There is a lot more I can't even mention here.

But none of that changes the fact that this is still an invasion since at the end of the day Ukraine is a sovereign nation being attacked by a foreign force. It would be double standard to call it anything else just like how I argued not so long ago that what Ukraine did in Iraq for years was criminal and an invasion where they killed innocent people, it doesn't matter if they call it a "peacekeeping mission" or some Iraqis wanted the dictator removed.

Well... I sort of agree. I can accept the fact that this war involves one sovereign nation invading another. But NATO complaining about it is like pot calling the kettle black. That said, half of the deaths from the Russian side comes from Ukrainian citizens fighting for DNR and LNR, and also among the former members of the Ukrainian Communist Party who were kicked out of Ukraine in 2014. In a way, Russia can claim that they were just assisting a section of Ukrainians, in their fight against another section.

... in Nuremberg, not only the direct ideologists of Nazism, but also propagandists were sentenced to capital punishment. Russian propaganda must be given its due - they outdid Nazi propaganda. But if the Nazi played on the feelings of people and "greatness", then the Russian one aimed to create a fake information field, fake greatness, and make sheep out of people.
I read the posts of some victims of Russian propaganda - I see evidence of my words, and the real achievement of the goal, not the genetic transformation of people into sheep :)
I won’t even spend a short time on facts, arguments, evidence of a real situation, such victims of propaganda - Russian propaganda managed to smooth out the convolutions of their brain  ;D

Well, we could talk about the finer details of numbers if you want, which is there and you decline it and that is your own "opinion" and sure go ahead and do that. But we could also talk about the reality, it has been over 3 months and Russia has failed to takeover Kyiv, which is proof enough that even though they are attacking with more manpower, more gunpowder, and more money, they are still not taking it, is that not enough for you?

This isn't even a pissing contest, you are saying that 30k Ukrainian soldiers are dead, and we all know Russia killed innocent bystanders as well, and you think that is fine? You are fine with that? My god you have no idea what you are saying do you? You are not aware that you are promoting death.

Being an Indian, I am staying neutral in this conflict. That is, unlike you I am not taking sides. Civilians have been killed on both the sides. Ukrainian army is constantly shelling cities under the control of DNR and LNR, which has resulted in hundreds of deaths ever since the war started. There are numerous instances of Russian and DNR/LNR POWs being tortured and shot at point blank. According to the Russians, there are more than 15,000 Ukrainian POWs in their custody, but the Ukrainian regime refuses to exchange them. And regarding the failure of Russia, from what I heard they are using only around 20% of their strength. Most of the fighting is being done by the militias of LNR and DNR and that is the reason why they have suffered thousands of deaths. Russian army is thinly spread across Kherson, Kharkiv and Zaporizhia, where the intensity is relatively low.

I see - Russian propaganda worked fiercely in India too :) Hmm ... I didn’t think that everything was so bad ... But how unexpected and bright it would be, then, a little later, an epiphany. It will come to the Indian, and the Kazakh, and the Spaniard and the Greek, and the Congolese and the Chilean - nationality does not affect the perception of reality or the choice of propaganda lies. An alternative reality invented by propagandists always collapses, and the odor and sediment on the soul remains for life ...

I read BBC News regularly and most of the mainstream media in India have taken a neutral stance on this conflict. Therefore I don't understand why you are claiming that Russian propaganda is working in India. Russia is not asking India to do anything. We, in India have our own preferences and we always do what is beneficial for us. But that doesn't mean that we will do something unethical or immoral. If you are talking about increasing imports, it was initiated by the Indian government (there was no pressure from Russia, and Rosneft even told some of the Indian companies that they don't have any more spare capacity to export crude oil to India).

He is a Russian troll and nothing more, so there is really no reason to take him seriously. Dude just wants to say "Russia is the best nation in the world" but he is taking a few extra steps while doing that. He means exactly that, but he can't say that directly so he is talking about how the west is bad, and how Ukraine is a fool to believe in the west that invested over 100 billion combined in money and other stuff, so all in all, he has been wrong from the first sentence and he knows it, he is aware of it, he just would not agree to it because he likes to talk about how awesome Russia is and nothing more. This is why we should ignore him.

TBH it's very hard to say what really is story because what you are saying won't be aired on western media like BBC, foxnews or BBC but on pro Russian media. Ukarine was part of Russia not so long ago, so it's very obvious that there are pro Russian elements in ukarine specially in its Eastern part.

EU boycotted Russian oil and gas and now they want rest of the world to do the same. Those who are not boycotting are criticised for supporting and spreading terrorism. I don't think Russians haven't done there homework before this war and few months of EU boycott would have destroyed there economy.

The same stance Pakistani PM took and they were not allowed to be neutral - did you happen to see the latest interview of Prime Minister Imran Khan with Dw's Richard. Where the PM of Pakistan got really angry when the anchor asked about Ukraine and Russia. The fact of the matter is that the PM is responsible for his country men and not the other wars. I am not sure why such discrimination in India and Pakistan.

I think that all is a propaganda - Russia is a very powerful and successful state. They have wheat, oil and gas. Many EU countries depend on them for the supply. Cutting ties with Russia is not a good decision. I like the stance of India - they are neutral and are not sending any country. Because it is their battle let them fight their battle.

Same questions were asked to the Indian foreign minister (Subrahmanyam Jaishankar) when he attended the Globsec 2022 Bratislava forum. He made it clear that India needs to put its own interest first. This is a proxy war between Russia and the NATO. Why developing nations such as India and Pakistan need to pay for it? At this point, India is receiving crude from Russia at the rate of $80 per barrel (which is 100% higher than the prices we had in 2020). We have made it very clear. If some other country can provide us crude at this rate, then we don't need to import crude all the way from Russia (it takes almost one month for tankers to travel from Russia to India).

Good thing done by Indians. I am not sure why the powerful are suppressing the weak countries all the time and dictate what they have to do and what not to do.
 I have a question - does military plays a role in Indian politics? or is it a democratic state?

The European Union made efforts to gradually weaken the Russian economy in various ways, one of which was a boycott of oil and gas, Nato voiced it for all countries to support this policy. although the European Union was affected by the boycott. there is a lot of propaganda in this conflict both countries do it. There are many interests that have happened in this I think, I can only feel and think how unfortunate it is for those who are victims, who do not know anything about the problem of the conflict but are affected by it.

The above figures of Russians killed in Ukraine, which were announced by the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the amount of 35,250 people, are not the total losses of Russia as of June 28. The Armed Forces of Ukraine cites confirmed losses without taking into account the number of wounded.
However, at that time, according to the classified data of the Russian Ministry of Defense and which was cited in the press by the former Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Avakov, Russia lost much more in manpower, namely: 48,800 people, of which 37,500 were directly Russian military personnel, 9,500 members of a private military company Wagner (now PMC "Liga") and 1800 employees of the Russian Guard. No one counts the dead mobilized residents of the unrecognized DPR and LPR, but there are about 10,000 casualties there. And not counting the wounded. And the advancing army usually does not have a set loss for one killed three wounded. If we consider that in Russia there are approximately 50,000 military dead, then there will be more than 100,000 wounded.

The last days have been especially fruitful for the Armed Forces of Ukraine in enemy technology. The Russians went with large forces to the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, deciding to arrange the Kursk Bulge-2 for the Ukrainians (one of the largest tank battles on the eastern front during the Second World War). The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation tried to break through the defense of the Ukrainians with armor and fire. The paratroopers of the 80th separate air assault brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine distinguished themselves here. In total, in two days of fighting on July 6 and 7, 37 Russian tanks, 22 armored vehicles and 16 artillery systems were destroyed.
Russia is running out of steam in this war. Let's see what happens in a few more months.

I think if a country attacks another country - they should fight on their own. The other powerful countries should not push other countries to come in that conflict.
I have notice EU is dragging the other countries in that Russian and Ukrainian war and if they are not taking their dictation - they have to pay the prices.

He is going to deny that at all times, he is just a Russian troll, let him be. We all know that if Russia was doing so great, they would have just taken all those places they wanted to take, hell the war would have been over by now.

Why is it not over? Because, Russia failed to take over, and Ukraine is not attacking Russian mainland to take over neither, so that means we are dealing with a situation where Russia is failing. All those deaths, from both sides, all because, Putin wanted to prove the world that he is strong president. It’s such a pity that people would have to die, tens of thousands of them, just because of one man’s ego and nothing else.

Exactly. The EU citizens are suffering from their own stupid policies, which resulted in sky high inflation and gas shortages. And now they want countries that are located tens of thousands of kilometers away to follow the same policy. How stupid these people can be? Do they really believe that they are still living in the first half of 20th century, when they ruled over half of the world in different colonies? US/EU are declining economies, and their own stupid policies are accelerating that decline. And the most comical thing is that they want other countries to suffer the same fate.

Just read in on social media that till date .. USA initiated/ participated in 16 War,  6 Million killed, One Noble Prize and No sanction. On the other hand there are counties  which are weak have to pay for being weak and not having a string defense. 

I am not really against it; yeah, if we do absolutely nothing about Russia attacking Ukraine, then we should not do anything about it if they decide to invade Finland, how about Estonia after that? How about if they decide to invade Latvia, Lithuania, after that? I mean where does it end? When do you say "that's enough Russia"?

You gotta start somewhere and at the start is great. They already have a puppet in Belarus, and they are de facto ruling Georgia as well, but if you let Ukraine too, which is basically in Europe already, then you are in a big trouble. This is why I get that, Russia attacking a European nation was the last draw for them and they are putting their foot down. Doesn't sound too silly to me, totally what anyone would do.

US and EU don't have courage to foot on ukarine soil and fight with Russia rather they are using ukarine for proxy war. Why other countries should boycott Russian cheap oil and gas. Between there is no clear announcement from EU that there gas import from Russia has gone down to zero.

Well nobody did anything when US and its allies that included Ukraine attacked Iraq and killed innocent people there. It didn't stop there either, they invaded Afghanistan and it didn't stop there either....
Where does it end? It will never end but it can end for weaker countries when they learn the importance of independence and then learn the meaning of resistance. How do you think the cavemen in Afghanistan won the war against the most expensive military in the world? Other countries are also being liberated as we speak.

It's basically all about the nuclear war threat. I mean could EU and USA go into Ukraine and beat Russia out of there if we are talking about just the regular soldiers and tanks type of war? Of course they can, it would be simple like taking candy out of a child. Hell USA alone could, the USA airforce has the biggest air power in all of the world, you know who has the second highest? USA navy. They are that huge, and they have bigger military spending then like 20+ next biggest combined.

So, no matter whatever nationalistic bs anyone talks about, USA army (I am not even American and dislike USA government as well) would win against anyone, probably against all of Europe if it had to, let alone just Russia. But nuclear weapons? That threat is a very real one, and can destroy the earth very easily with a single button.

The recent US defeat in Afghanistan was extremely humiliating and severely damaged US military morale and self-confidence. Prior to this, the United States also did not particularly work out in Syria. An Iranian missile attack on military bases in Iraq in the immediate vicinity of the US consulate in early 2020 also had to be swallowed up and left without an adequate response. The US Army is in its worst state since the collapse of the USSR in 1991, when it celebrated victory in the Cold War and visibly relaxed. At the same time, the United States curtailed the development of new types of promising nuclear weapons, considering that it was enough to maintain the achieved level and everything would be fine - because the United States had already proved to everyone that they were the toughest guys in the world. But without live nuclear testing, how can you be sure that your nuclear weapons are still operational 30 years later? The report on the combat readiness of the nuclear arsenal is now being formed by a group of experts appointed by the US State Department, and who are therefore biased and obviously not objective. What if I told you that the US is now at its lowest combat capability in its history? How will you refute this statement of mine, except for the unfounded expert theses that you heard in the show on TV?

I checked news from mainstream media and there is a lot of hue and cry claiming that India imported $5 billion worth of oil, gas and coal from Russia ever since the war started. I was quite perplexed when I read the entire article. The same article says that the EU imported $65 billion worth of hydrocarbons from Russia during the same period. And the ones who imported $65 billion worth of stuff are now blaming the guy who imported $5 billion. Can these people get anymore shameless? We Indians are not fools. If the EU has any problem with our imports, they can go and f**k themselves.

"Subramaniam Jaishankar on Friday slammed Europe for being "silent on many issues" and asked it to grow out of a 'our problem is world's problem' mindset" source (https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/global-event-news/jaishankar-calls-out-europes-problem-is-worlds-problem-mindset-holds-indias-ground-articleshow.html)

I am not an Indian but believe me these white peoples who try to be champions of human rights and freedom are source of majority of worlds problem. I 100% agree with what indian foreign minister saying. They don't have courage to go and fight with Russia nor they can boycott Russian gas but they want rest of the world to boycott Russia oil and gas, its nothing but hypocrisy. Now what's more interesting is direct threat from Putin. I am sure EU will reply to this threat by asking rest of the world to boycott Russian products.

"Does the West want to defeat Russia on the battlefield? So try it, "Putin (https://m.dw.com/ur/%D9%85%D8%BA%D8%B1%D8%A8-%D9%85%DB%8C%D8%AF%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%AC%D9%86%DA%AF-%D9%85%DB%8C%DA%BA-%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%B3-%DA%A9%D9%88-%D8%B4%DA%A9%D8%B3%D8%AA-%D8%AF%DB%8C%D9%86%D8%A7-%DA%86%D8%A7%DB%81%D8%AA%D8%A7-%DB%81%DB%92-%D8%AA%D9%88-%DA%A9%D9%88%D8%B4%D8%B4-%DA%A9%D8%B1%DA%A9%DB%92-%D8%AF%DB%8C%DA%A9%DA%BE-%D9%84%DB%92-%D9%BE%D9%88%D9%B9%D9%86/a-62403203)

Nobody is the winner of a nuclear war and as long as two conventional militaries face each other the result would be impossible to predict. But the thing is, if US got directly involved they won't be fighting Russia alone. Let's just say the same unconventional warfare Ukraine uses to slow down Russian forces will be used against US but by the real inventors of those strategies so it won't be to "slow down" US ;)

It doesn't matter how much money you spend, what matters is what you spend it on. For example if you spend $220 million to build what is supposed to be the most advanced stealth aircraft but it is easily shot down with a single missile that is not worth more than a $1000 that means you have thrown away your money.
Or if you have spent $100 billion building a massive nuclear submarine that can't detect a swarm of dirt cheap stealth UUV (Unmanned Underwater Vehicles) that are going to sink it easily... then you should have spent that money on the millions of homeless in your country instead of that submarine. ;)

You can read anything. But your inner state is not described by these media, but by your statements. About some ephemeral Lugansk and Donetsk republics. About some kind of salvation by Russia of someone on the territory of Ukraine. About your, if not pro-Russian (or rather pro-terrorist) position, then a completely loyal attitude towards it. Support for the country of a terrorist and the unacceptability of sanctions against it ... So hiding behind the media is not a very logical thing. But in the end, you say - and then a thick layer of any media exposes YOUR thoughts :)

I don't get the notion that Russia has been under sanctions for many years, therefore they can handle these sanctions. First of all, 8 years is not "many" years, especially if you take into consideration how slow economic sanctions take to full force. Second, the new sanctions are nothing like the ones before so it's not really coparable.


And just to add, I don't think any serious analyst was saying that tge sanctions won't hurt Europe as well, we all knew that, I don't get why we need to point out every week that the sanctions are also and issue for Europe. Duh.

Well, why are you as if not from this planet?! :)
Real sanctions have been introduced against Russia since March 2022. Total - only 4 months ago!
The oil embargo has not yet been introduced (starts to work from December 2022). Those. in fact, sanctions have only been introduced! If you think that sanctions act on the economy as quickly as cyanide, then no. Sanctions are much worse. It's like scorpion venom. It acts slowly but destructively. At first, everything is fine, "don't make our Iskanders laugh", it's fun, everyone laughs. Then it starts to freeze a little, a slight trembling appears... And for some reason you can't laugh... Then the budgets for social programs suddenly disappear, and the funds in the accounts of citizens begin to be blocked.... Everything starts to rise in price. And many imported goods - just disappear. Companies are closing, unemployment is rising... The economy is paralyzed - because. fees and taxes are drastically reduced. The economy begins to devour itself... Then there is a complete and irreversible degradation of the financial system. In an animal that has been bitten by a scorpion, this corresponds to paralysis, when the animal is still alive, but can no longer do anything, and simply watches how the scorpion begins to eat it alive. The fate of Russia will also end in the same way :)

Can't say what sanctions on Russia has done bad to him but euro has fallen to its 20 years low against dollar and prime reason for that fall is rising energy prices in Europe. Euro hits US dollar parity for first time in 20 years (https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/economy/2022/7/12/euro-hits-us-dollar-parity-for-first-time-in-20-years). USA currency is going at its two decades high against many currencies.
Nord Stream 1, was closed for 10 days annual maintenance and its not likely that gas supply will resume on 21 July 2022.
Both Russia and EU are on same level, one wanna sell and other desperately wanna buy it.
USA to me is the biggest beneficiary of this conflict. All parties must sit and think how to resolve this issue.

I advise you not to take hard drugs during daylight hours. ;D

Western sanctions are not able to cause serious damage to Russia, because Russia has taken care of its food and energy security, as well as the independence of its financial system.

Exactly.The prices will grow even further,for the ruble they managed to stabilize it for that amount of months but lately,specifically in these last 3 weeks the dollar has exploded against every currency,it is now on par level with the EUR for the first time in 20 years and of course this has caused the ruble to fall down another 20% against the dollar.The grain exports clearly has resumed from Russia now with the new harvest but their main buyers are Egypt,Iran,Turkey,Jordan for the majority of their export and rarely we see any European country buying grain from Russia except very few forced ones.The sanctions are working,the long range weapons also in Ukraine as they are destroying a lot of depot with ammunition in the occupied territories so everything is working against Russia so far,Russia has achieved absolutely nothing positive,has only collected negatives after negatives from this war so far.

Both bold parts are wrong.
USD is dumping very hard itself, which you can clearly see if you compare it with price of goods in US (gas, diesel, groceries, rent,... are all soaring fast).

The only major thing that happened recently was EUR and GBP dumping fast (about 5%) which brought their exchange rate down against US dollar faster.
https://i.imgur.com/VTUzJNA.jpg

Other major currencies like CNY, RUB, JPY, WON,... still have more or less the same exchange rate against USD.

Here in India, the local currency (Indian Rupee or INR) has gone down by around 5% during the last 12 months against US Dollar. Other local currencies in the South Asian region (PKR, SLR.etc) have gone down even more, and it is not looking good for the medium term. Trade deficit is increasing due to the soaring price of crude oil. I don't know how the Chinese are managing to keep their currency strong, but in India the weakening local currency is making inflation much worse than it should have been.

I'm curious on how long the West believes they should sanction Russia because the Euro is on the decline and is on par with USD at the moment.

The so called "economists" seem to be ignoring the other half of the sanctions which include hurting the economies of any countries who wish not to do any transactions with Russia. If the west doesn't want cheap oil in efforts to hurt the Russian economy, fine. But perhaps reevaluating how far they wish to tank their economies/currencies would be worthy of consideration.

You need to remember that some of the warmongers have already lost their job. Boris Johnson of England has been kicked out of power. Another hawk, Emmanuel Macron of France lost his parliamentary majority. Mario Draghi of Italy is about to resign. I am wondering who is next. A large part of the European population is not comfortable with the idea of spending tens of billions of USD in the form of military aid to Ukraine, and that too when Russia is making slow and steady advances. That money should be better spent on combating inflation back home.

Indeed, there are certain difficulties in Europe now due to the maximum possible rejection of Russian oil and gas at this stage. But these difficulties are temporary until the suppliers of these energy carriers change and the ways of their delivery are established. But for Russia, these difficulties will only grow with time. Russia will no longer be able to build new pipelines to the other end of the planet because of its growing economic problems. In addition, the countries of Europe, even before the imposition of sanctions against Russia, took a course towards the gradual abandonment of oil, coal and gas in general and their gradual replacement with alternative energy. Therefore, in the long run, Russia will definitely lose.

As for the sanctions themselves, Europe has already understood that if you make concessions to the aggressor, then after a certain time their countries will also be subjected to Russian military strikes. And therefore, it is better to go to temporary difficulties and destroy Russia economically than to constantly be blackmailed by her.

That's mostly about printing money in my opinion. We suffer from the same problem, the previous administration printed so much money that it still is causing inflation even though for the past 10 months the new administration hasn't printed anything.

There is definitely a very interesting domino effect we are witnessing these days where governments fall one after the other. I'm mostly wondering about who is going to replace Boris the hairdo since he is the victim of Brexit where they thought they could exit EU to avoid the damage to UK economy while EU got weaker, then come back as the saviors.

Boris was very vocal in his support to Ukraine and at the same time ignored problems at home. At this point, there are three frontrunners. The one who got the maximum number of votes till now is Rishi Sunak. But is UK ready for an Asian, non-Christian Prime Minister? I don't think so. Others in contention are Penny Mordaunt and Liz Truss. But I don't expect a sharp deviation in the foreign policy. But all this is just a beginning. I won't be surprised if there are further regime changes in the European Union.

This Ukraine and Russia has done a terrible disaster in the world. The oil and gas prices. The destruction - the sanctions and the world involvement and then comes the regime change. 1 - Sri Lanka, 2: Pakistan and now 3: England. One the other hand ukraine had got  the donation from all over.

Its naive to think that these sanctions will work and that Russia will stop the invasion. You don't think that they didn't run this scenario and didn't think that this will happen if they attack Ukraine? Of course they knew and yet they just didn't care, knowing that they don't have to fear the people.

Keep in mind that they have dictator in charge who can't be removed via elections, so no matter how poor and unhappy Russians get, they won't be able to do much about it. On top of that, Russians (as eastern Europe people in general) are used to hardships and will endure this easier than EU citizens.

Yes Yes Yes ! All right! I agree ! Relax, we believe you. And the dollar will collapse and envy the ruble, and the United States will once again be destroyed by mighty Russia! And defeat the junta! And Russia is a great country! And the army of Russia is "analo shitty"! And NATO is in shock, and the Bulgarians are delighted :)
And... and ask the nurse to give you haloperidol, you don't have to worry so much. Take care of yourself, while studying the cuisine of the new Russia - bark soup, and compote from the same water :)

Things started to move in the wrong direction much earlier. Crude started moving northwards by the end of 2020, when Biden was elected as the president of the United States. He immediately banned fracking in federal lands and cancelled the Keystone XL pipeline. Even before Russia invaded Ukraine, crude oil was trading at $90-$100 per barrel range. And now it is trading at a slightly higher level, at $100-$120 per barrel. Now Biden is on a trip to Saudi Arabia, to beg the Arab Sheikhs to increase their oil output. Midterms are looming and it is going to be a disaster for Biden and his party.

I believe Trump was a better president than Biden. While everyone was cursing Trump - I saw a progressive change in America.
But since the Biden has taken over - and how they have ended Afghan war was a terrible disaster. This too had a serious impact on the world. And then This Ukraine war .. Gosh!

What you are wrong about is the assumption that Russia knew that there would be such sanctions! Russia's plans for Ukraine were simply fabulous - to take all of Ukraine in 4-6 weeks (these are the deadlines for suppressing the remaining centers of resistance), the belief that most Ukrainians want to return to the "alliance with Russia", the belief that in Russia "the second most powerful army in the world", and most importantly, that Germany and France, led by Kremlin liners, will not allow any significant sanctions against Russia to be pushed through! But everything went wrong. And the Russian army turned out to be fake, and Merkel and Macron turned out to be, of course, "friends of Russia", but they were afraid not to support 6 packages of sanctions, and most importantly, the Ukrainians for some reason did not want to give up and again fall under "friendship with Russia". Most of Russia's problems are connected with huge corruption at the top level of power, total lies, even to their "leader". It was the law enforcement agencies who wrote reports to him that Ukraine did not have weapons and an army, that the Russian army was one of the strongest in the world, and that subversive work on the territory of Ukraine led to the fact that Putin in Ukraine was simply ready to meet with flowers from east to west of Ukraine . Lied :)

I didn't say that they 100% knew that will be the reaction, but that they ran that scenario for sure and were aware that might be one of the possibilities. I agree with the 2nd part of the post though, they underestimated Ukraine (not just them, I remember western analytics saying  Kiev will fall in a few days as well) and expected to finish much faster and probably install puppet government that will do as told.

Those who think sanctions make sense and will work might take a look at North Korea and Cuba, with the big difference that this time we will get screwed in the process as well.

I don't know if Russia plan was fabulous or not - but I know inflation is too fabulous for us to survive.
People are dying of COVID and war and now this inflation war- way too fabulous than both the mentioned before.

According to your logic, France, Poland, Hungary, Belgium and many other victims of the aggression of Nazi Germany and the communist ghouls of the USSR are to blame for the destruction in the Second World War. The option that the aggressor who attacked Europe is guilty of the results of aggression does not occur to you, do I understand correctly? Those. if a killer attacks you, you will be to blame for the fact that you will have injuries, abrasions, etc. ? Amazing logic!


Tell me - do you know the concept of "causal relationships"? Is it when some event has a previous cause?
For example, it's not the hot water that's to blame for burning your hand, but the fact that you put your hand in a pot of boiling water. Think about what caused inflation and problems, for example, with the German industry?

India is in still better shape than Pakistan - In Pakistan the interest rate has gone up-to 33% The highest in the history and that too they have gone through regime change.. . The neighboring country has faced so much turmoil during the past few months.

I think the government of Russia did not imagine that Ukraine would put up such strong resistance and the war would last much shorter. Russia is not prepared for such a long period of being under sanctions from all over the world. I think it is not really the export / import of food, gas or oil that will be the most important factor that will hurt Russia the most. In my opinion, Russia will feel the biggest problems due to the lack of supply of new technologies and updates / upgrades of the old one. Many IT specialists have left and are going to western countries, and Russia will eventually be left with a very big technological problem and a huge shortage of specialists.

..Russia has done enough damage to the world. Already when the world started reviving from COVID then they brought to us this unwelcoming war.
And on the other side the whole European union came screaming - sanction sections - support Ukraine - and in this war many countries have been terribly affected see Sri Lanka and Pakistan which remained neutral

The war actually started in 2014, when NATO and CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Yanukovych. Then again in 2022, opposition parties from the Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine were banned and their leaders were arrested. The only way for Ukraine to survive was to decentralize power and give more rights to the Eastern Ukrainians. The Kiev regime on the other hand was hell bent on imposing their language and policies on the Easterners. And as we are witnessing, it didn't worked well for them.

In India, it is also a tradition, like in Russia - in any case, squealing "the United States is to blame for everything"? :)))

Let's check ? Right here, tell everyone, including me, a participant in the Maidan, how the United States and the Pentagon, and the CIA, and the FBI and biological laboratories, and divisions of African-American gays, overthrew the unfortunate, kind and pro-Ukrainian, law-abiding, not stealing, V.F. Yanukovych?
At the same time, please do not forget to tell me why, in November-December 2013, unrest began in Kiva, where I live?
I'm sure it will be great to hear from you! :)

PS At the same time, I confirm - Yanukovych was elected, was really open democratic elections!
PS I wonder - under what brand in India they play 24 * 7 channel Russia Today ?! now I am absolutely sure of this, and you are the best proof of that, dear Sithara007! :)

The whole world is doing a great role in destroying the world.
The war and inflation has made the survival very difficult and also there is no stopping.Millions of the people died and still there is no stopping.

Do you want to say that all the energy crisis, the food crisis that is about to come, the chaos in the markets around the world and the rapes and crimes of genocide committed by Russian soldiers are the fault of Ukraine?

It is reckless to lay the blame on Ukraine, since its foreign and domestic policy is not independent and is deeply dependent on the United States. The United States has been the instigator and culprit of virtually every major armed conflict in the world since the post-World War II era. War by proxy and on foreign territory is a modern US corporate identity. And the conflict in Ukraine is no exception, simply because the United States is profitable, the United States is the main beneficiary of this conflict and the main supplier of hatred around the world. Such a story.

Ok, so you say that the United States is to blame for the rape and murder of civilians by Russian soldiers and for which they have permission from their commanders? Has something heavy fallen on your head lately?

In any armed conflict, civilians inevitably suffer, either directly (murder, rape) or indirectly (forced evacuation from the war zone). So far, I see that Russian soldiers in the Donbass are mostly met by local residents not as occupiers, but as liberators. If you have other information, then first make sure that you are not a victim of anti-Russian propaganda.

..And USA added fuel to the fire.
they made the Russian war a global crisis and now they have gone to Saudi for the help and oil purchase. What a joke they have made of the whole world

Americans never care about anyone else. For them, this is an ideal opportunity to capture the LNG market share in Europe and Japan/South Korea. Both the shale oil/gas and shipping companies that are based in the US are profiting from this war. And the biggest losers are countries that were previously dependent on Russian oil and gas. If they want, the Americans can easily bring down the oil/gas prices. All they need to do is to remove the restrictions imposed on domestic producers when Biden came to power. But they will never do that, because they want prices to remain at this level.

The "anti-Russian" propaganda means that, if people move from Mexico to Texas, and there are a ton of people in 2 towns of Texas that came from Mexico, then it means Mexico could occupy those two towns of Texas and take that land? People from Mexico will applaud because they are Mexicans and America would have to give up land because Americans do not live there? That is not an explanation.

Definitely Ukraine had a lot of places with mainly Russian lovers live there, but if they want to they could leave, but not ask for that land to be given up. Do not assume that Russia attacking and killing people would EVER have any logical sense to anyone outside of Russia lovers and Putin devotees, we will never fall for that.

Dude, you seem to know very little about Texas history if you're using it here as an example. The US annexed Texas from Mexico in 1845. ;D

So much we have discussed on this war. And i remember people shouting for bans on Russia but I was of the opinion that Russia is not a weak country and since they are one of the biggest oil producing country - it would not be an easy game to get stable after cutting ties with Russia.

There are no doubt that the United States is the largest arms exporter in the world and the majority of their revenue is derived from the sale of arms, which contributes to the growth of their economy. If there is no war, who do they sell weapons to, so I also agree with you that America is the mastermind of most of the wars in the world. No one benefits more than them, one way or another they are always manipulating all that chaos, unfortunately Ukraine has become the target this time.

Some exciting news coming in from India. Russia has become the top supplier of crude oil to India, replacing Iraq. Saudi Arabia has been pushed to the third position. And rather than purchasing directly from Russia, most of the crude oil is sourced though intermediaries who are based in the European Union (such as Montfort and Wellbred). For the month of June, Russian imports amounted to 1.184 million barrels per day (IOC alone imported around 450,000 barrels per day from Russia). As per Business Standard, Indian refineries are purchasing Urals crude from Montfort at a discount of $8 per barrel when compared to Brent crude market price.

This was is an exception because the benefit of US in this war is not monetary as we know they haven't been "selling" weapons to Ukraine but "donating" it with a huge billion dollar budget dedicated. Also this conflict is causing high inflation in United States which is damaging their economy. There is also a secondary damage as US dollar is being dumped as reserve currency slowly but surely.

The benefit is mostly geopolitical for US as every day Russia is stuck in Ukraine it is increasing the cost for Russia. Every asset they lose, their military becomes 1 asset weaker. This is why US is all for prolonging the conflict.
It also weakens Europe and increases their dependence on US while keeping the dumping petrodollar alive.

This is a very convenient position, like, for example, "the United States is to blame for everything, therefore", or "Ukraine is under the influence of the United States, therefore ..." (hereinafter any delirium delirium :)). Why is it convenient? Well, because it's easier to live this way, you don't have to think that you or your country is doing it wrong. You can not suffer and not start to change, it is enough to repeat "the United States / world government / masons / Jews / Ukrainians / ..." are to blame for everything, right? :) This is an absolutely well-known psychiatric defensive move, when it is unpleasant for you to realize reality or the truth, such "conclusions" come to "help". And propaganda on them just grows like mold on a rotten vegetable - powerfully and quickly :)
In a word - you don’t need fantasies, you need to be a realist, although I agree, sometimes it’s not very pleasant

You are lying shamelessly again :)
I am not surprised, but others may even believe without checking your sparkling humor. We open the encyclopedic dictionary and read:
"The Republic of Texas declared its independence on March 2, 1836, and in the same year wished to join the United States"!
You are just shamelessly, INTENTIONALLY lying, and I'm sure you don't even blush :)
But okay, these are your problems, and we will return to the story! What happened next? And here is what "... On March 1, 1845, President Tyler signed the bill of accession, and on March 3, he sent it to Texas. Texas recognized the accession, and on December 29, 1845, the Polk officially admitted Texas to the Union as the 28th state. Formal accession of Texas to the Union occurred on February 19, 1846."
This is what reality looks like, and not what you are trying to put through here under the guise of history :)

And the annexation, this is what Russia did, capturing the Autonomous Republic of Crimea by FORCE (which, by the way, is also terrorism) and holding a fake referendum there. But this will be fixed soon :) And Texas, since then, has been happy to be part of the USA! At the same time, its GDP significantly exceeds the miserable 1.3% of Russian "greatness" :)

So that this information is not like classic Russian news fakes, when the words are not confirmed by anything, I will give statistics that you and any other person can easily check:

Even though Russia has nearly 5 times the population of Texas, the economy of the Lone Star State is 400 billion larger. The gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in Texas is $58,000, while in Russia it is $8,700.

Threat, you don’t just have to try to slip the GDP (according to PPP), it’s as informative as the average temperature in the hospital :)

...There is a cause and effect and there is a ripple effect - There is one thing which happens in one part of the world and it affects the other part of the world.
i was not in the favour - of EU putting bans on Russia to teach them lesson now Russia has taught everyone a great lesson. They wont mess with Russia again

Considering USA has a bigger military budget than 25 next nations combined, Russia doesn't have a thing they can do about it. Sure USA wouldn't give "all" to Ukraine, there is no way, but they could keep on spending that kind of money and weapons and other stuff to help Ukraine until Russia is broke.

Definitely, it looks like Russia can do this much longer and they are doing financially fine "now", but the moment they realize they do not have too many more soldiers left to send, and too many weapons to attack with, I agree that those asset numbers will force them to stop and USA could prolong this as long as they want. They have the assets for it, and they are not the ones dying.

They don't sell weapons to Ukraine but since the war broke out, Europe, the Middle East, and other countries have increased defense spending and American arms companies have pocketed billions of dollars in arms sales to these countries.

Russia is considered a major rival of the US, if Russia gets bogged down in war, it will benefit the US. Russia will hold regular presidential elections in 2024 and this is a great opportunity to discredit Putin.

The last thing you mentioned: Europe will weaken and they will become more and more dependent on the US for food, energy, weapons.
Inflation is causing a crisis for the American people but has pushed the USD to a new position, affirming the dominant position of the USD. The US dollar appreciates in favor of the US in lending and debt repayment. This is considered a tool to export US inflation to the world.

That means nothing because:

1. Everything is ultra expensive in US. That means manufacturing the simplest thing in US costs a lot more compared to manufacturing the same exact thing elsewhere. For example a single missile in Patriot system that can't shoot shit costs over $3 million! Same with salaries. A quick google search says a US soldier is paid starting from $2944 (that is $500 in Russia).
Same with literary everything else. A kilo of potato costs $1.05 in US but it is $0.4 here. LOL

2. A large part of that budget is wasted on adventures. For example when they fly one of their oldest and most useless planes like B-52 for media coverage it costs a ton of money (roughly $70k per hour). This is money wasted.

3. A large part of that budget is wasted on stupid projects. As Secretary of Defense Esper said, they'd wasted billions of dollars on projects such as the Crusader Mobile Artillery System and Future Combat System, etc. all silly projects created by those who scammed the US military out of billions of dollars.

4. What they build using that money is also proven to be useless. I already mentioned their defense systems like Patriot that are completely useless. Their aircraft is also far behind the technology and are useless against modern air defense systems. Same with their radars, navy, etc.

I agree with this to some extent. US will continue the proxy war with Russia to the last Ukrainian as long as they can. What I'm afraid of is how long is Russia going to tolerate the losses before they start using "other" type of weapons on Ukraine.
I already mentioned US wants to turn Ukraine to Afghanistan for Russia since US was caught in Afghanistan for 20 years and wasted thousands of troops and $7 trillion. I should also mention US at some point used MOAB in Afghanistan in 2017 after being stuck there for 16 years which is 16 years of losing...

I'm curiously watching to see how US is going to deal with the fact that more than 60% of the world is starting a new economic bloc that is not only not going to use USD but also is going to use a new currency among them.
In other words US is going to export its inflation to Europe mainly not the world.

Instead of disputes, simple, real facts that you can check! This is not propaganda wet fantasies. This happened over the past 1-2 weeks :)

- At the plant, which asked for help from Putin and produced Lada Vesta, 90% of workers are fired
If now the Lada Izhevsk enterprise employs 2,000 people, by the end of August only about 200 will remain.

- At the same time, the new Lada Vesta 2022 turned out to be more expensive than the cooler Toyota Camry and RAV4

- The Central Bank expects the collapse of the Russian economy in the second half of the year in a mode of catastrophic destruction.
The Central Bank suggests that the Russian economy in the second quarter may fall by almost 4.5-5%.

-FROM. Arabia in July increased oil exports by 15%.
She bypassed the Russian Federation in terms of supplies to China and India. And at the same time increased supplies to the EU.

- American shale turns the taps. Major US oil companies agree to drastically increase production
The Biden administration made a deal with the oilmen: they promised to increase production by 0.8-1 million barrels per day by the end of the year.

- Russia's share in world medical research has fallen below 1%

- As follows from the analytical material of Rosstat, in the first half of 2022, Russia reduced natural gas production by 6.6% compared to the same period in 2021. In June, Russia produced 39.26 billion cubic meters. m of gas, which is 23.2% less than in June last year, and 19.9% ​​less than in May 2022.
At the same time, Russian gas supplies to other countries fell by 33.1% over six and a half months, to 71.9 billion cubic meters.

And these sanctions have not yet reached their "full speed", this is still the inertia of the Russian economy :)

OK. Deal. So we come to a simple, and most importantly, from the point of view of the wave effect, an absolutely correct conclusion - Russia is to blame for everything! It's a ripple effect! And whoever does not see the connection - he simply lacks development, knowledge, and the length of the line! Can you prove otherwise?
And if you don't like it, then Russia is also to blame! :)

I can't talk about other points, but this one doesn't sound very accurate.

For the month of June, the top crude oil supplier to India was Russia. We got 1.18 million barrels per day from Russia, 1.13 million from Iraq and 0.784 million from Saudi Arabia. For the month of July final data is not yet available, but I don't think that supplies from Saudi has overtaken those from Russia. Because in addition to the Urals crude from the European part of Russia, Indian refineries are importing ESPO crude from the Asian part as well.

But there is proof that the discount on Russian crude is evaporating. Previously Indian refiners were reporting discounts of up to $30 per barrel. Recently, they are reporting $8 to $12. Also, as per the Russian sources, export duty on Russian crude increased to $55.20 a ton in July, compared to $44.80 a ton in June. This means that Russians are able to sell their crude at lesser discounts.

Therefore, it is worth expressing doubts when there will be official data (as confirmation of doubts), and now these are just fantasies, due to lack of information :)

Regarding the reduction of discounts - no, there won't be, because soon the EU will completely abandon everything except pipeline oil (and then from it), which will lead to an oversupply of Russian oil. The market regulates this only by lowering the price from the "limited supplier". Russia has already reduced gas production, and has already begun to lose huge amounts of money. But a month ago they were screaming like that - "without us, you will all freeze!" and "you have nowhere to take gas except from Russia", they are funny, right!? :)

The EU ban on Russian crude is still 4 months away. I don't see any oversupply of Russian crude before that date. For the month of July, Netherlands and a few other European countries have increased their intake of Russian crude. The Indian and Russian refineries (such as IOC and Sinopec) are complaining that the discounts are not very attractive. And I don't think that the revenues from natural gas sales are down by a lot. Yamal LNG is still able to sell their cargoes at ultra-high prices. Russian gas is still flowing through the Ukrainian route, and Nord Stream is operating at 20% capacity. All this, while natural gas is trading at close to $2,300 per thousand cubic meters at Dutch TTF.

You can now say anything. But the fact remains that oil is getting cheaper, Russia is rapidly losing high-priced markets, and the European hydrocarbon market is falling out of Russia's hands. India and China will not help in any way, because. redeem the surplus at a dumping price ...

Here, for example, is a real fact - Russia began to stupidly burn gas, which they decided to undersupply to the EU, as part of economic terrorism :) Idiot terrorists understand that conservation will mean the destruction of the well, because Russia is a technologically backward country, and without Western technologies it will not reopen wells :)

I read your posts like a humorous magazine. Summary: Russia is falling apart, children are drowning in toilets, grandmothers are praying for Putin, and the Buryats are running out. ;D

I respect your opinion as the author of the coolest jokes about the "greatness of Russia" and the "collapse of the world economy" :)

In the meantime, a few facts about "great Russia" - look what a lovely piece of news. Russia has success everywhere! :)
Moscow. August 1. INTERFAX.RU - The Bank of Russia estimated the fall of the Russian economy in the second quarter of 2022 at 4.3%, in the third quarter the decline is estimated at 7%. Such data are contained in the July report on monetary policy.
The Ministry of Economic Development previously estimated the decline in Russia's GDP in the second quarter at 4%.
Annual inflation in the third quarter, according to the Central Bank, will be 14.5%.
https://www.interfax.ru/business/854794

And now a nuance: Russia is a country of total lies (this is part of the culture), and if they officially write something, then it must be multiplied by at least 2 if it is about some kind of shortcomings. As, however, and divide by 10 if they say (read - lie), about success :)

Boris Johnson was forced to resign due to his accusations of domestic actions, not state affairs. Now in the election of the Prime Minister of Great Britain, the current British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who claims to be the Prime Minister of the country and the leader of the Conservative Party, is leading.
Recently, she has received the support of her former main rival Penny Mordaunt.
Junior Commerce Secretary Penny Mordaunt was the latest candidate to be eliminated in a vote by lawmakers from the ruling Conservative Party, losing to Truss by just eight votes. As noted, Mordaunt joined other ministers who have backed Truss in recent days, including Defense Secretary Ben Wallace and Treasury Secretary Nadhim Zahavi.

So far Truss is the favorite in this election. The leader of the 160,000 members of the Conservative Party was supposed to be elected by September 5, but the election was postponed due to the threat of interference in the elections by the hackers. I think that Liz Truss will become the new prime minister and Johnson's old policy will continue.

It seems like Putin has done all necessary homework before this attack. See who is suffering most, IMO EU and ukarine. While Russia has found new oil importers like China and even gulf countries are importing Russian oil. USA is also one of biggest beneficiary of this conflict as dollar is sky high.

According to a Yale University study, the withdrawal of more than 1,000 international companies from the Russian Federation after Putin's invasion of Ukraine will affect 40% of the country's GDP. The collapse of imports devastated its foreign technology-dependent automotive, aviation and defense industries. Russia's gross domestic value added fell by 62% in the construction sector, by 55% in agriculture and by 25% in industry. Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the foreign exchange reserves of the Russian Federation have decreased by $75 billion.
The authors of the Yale report note that Putin's plans to pivot to the East make neither economic nor practical sense. In 2021, Russia exported only 16.5 billion cubic meters of gas to China, compared to 170 billion cubic meters to Europe. Now Russia's westernmost gas field, Chayanda, connected to China via the Power of Siberia 1 pipeline, has a maximum projected annual capacity of just 25 billion cubic meters - "and that only by 2025." "Other gas fields, in particular Sakhalin and Khabarovsk, should be connected to the Power of Siberia. But even when the entire Far Eastern gas network is completed, its throughput will still not reach the capacity of one of the Russian gas pipelines to Europe - Nord Stream - 1" (55 billion cubic meters)," the authors note.

At the same time, the announced Power of Siberia 2 pipeline with a capacity of 50 billion cubic meters per year, which should connect the Yamal Peninsula in the Arctic with China, remains a plan on paper. Gazprom, being cut off by sanctions from attracting international finance and buying Western equipment, cannot finance this project. Therefore, in fact, everything is very bad in Russia.

Can you provide a link to the source so that I can read the report in the original (and so that the Autobot does not ban you for plagiarism)?

Any country that relies only on one side is doomed from the start. There needs to be a balance in relationships. Like an investment, countries need to diversify. It means for example importing everything from the West and relying fully on the west was already idiotic. Similarly if this "pivot" is fully to the East, it is equally idiotic.

On the other hand if Russia starts selling gas to EU at realistic prices (instead of the super cheap prices like past years) while exporting it to elsewhere (China, India, Eastern Asia, etc.), stops relying fully only on imports from EU and US (eg. gas turbines from Iran at a better quality and cheaper price), kicks foreign companies out that they don't need (like McDonald's!!!), starts diversifying their foreign investors, ... then it is a good decision and makes both economical and practical sense.

If the Yale University report is saying otherwise it is either propaganda or you have to doubt their credibility.

Of course the transition comes at a cost specially when it is accompanied by armed conflict but what's interesting is that so far EU and US economies are more affected by it than the Russian economy!

European and Western countries have dragged out a series of sanctions against Russia, but Russia's oil and gas exports are far greater than its imports, and sanctions cannot weaken Russia's economy.

Agreed on each and every point. Back in 2014, the Russian government decided to convert some of their forex reserves to gold and CNY. But even in 2022, more than half of their reserves were either in EUR or USD and this enabled the western nations to freeze all those funds. I don't know how much the western economies will get impacted in the end, but it is not going to be one-sided. So far the media has focused on the economic hardship within Russia, such as weakening Ruble and unemployment. But the real impact in Western economies will be revealed by the end of this year when they will import LNG at sky high rates from Qatar and the US.

At your request, I provide links to several articles with the abstracts of the Yale University report and to the report itself:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4167193
https://topcor.ru/27313-britanskij-zhurnalist-mjetjuz-razvorot-rossii-k-kitaju-ne-imeet-smysla.html
https://ecodefense.ru/2022/08/05/sanctions-are-crippling-russian-economy/
https://forbes.ua/ru/inside/devyat-mifiv-pro-vidnovlennya-rosiyskoi-ekonomiki-popri-zayavi-kremlya-sanktsii-pratsyuyut-ale-ikh-potribno-bilshe-the-economist-26072022-7353

It's not such a big surprise that the sanctions have an effect. I know it was hard not to buy the Russian propaganda at the start that was telling us how sanctions won't have an effect on them, but they do, they can't escape that, especially the export part of it. They will try to find a home for their gas export, and China is a really good option, but I am not sure how much will China be able to take in and when the pipelines needed to transport will be finished.

The Chinese officials have a reputation as tough negotiators (similar to Turkey). They will never pay the same price that the Europeans pay to Russia. But at this point, I don't think that Russians care a lot about their profit margins. As long as they are able to sell their gas at decent prices to China, they will be happy. Japan and South Korea would have been more attractive options. But the close relationship these two countries have with NATO, I don't think that Russian gas will find any new markets there.

Yes Russia is loosing steam. It certainly has became a pariah in international stage. However implosion is overstatement. In a lot many ways Russia is too big to ignore. Many countries are dependent on it and this economic condemnation can't sustain long. See along with Russia, Europe is also facing tough time, their gas prices are too high and they will need Russian gas in future, so they will probably resume trade with Russia in future.

Thanks, very informative. I have read the original report and I can say that this study (and especially the conclusions from it) are highly politicized. Indeed, Russia has difficulties with the size of the positive balance of payments, but I would not dramatize this situation. After all, if your balance has become sharply positive, then someone's balance has become sharply negative. And if you have a large surplus of energy resources, then someone else has an equally large deficit. And this is a really serious problem.

However, I see three Polish names among the authors of the report, and Poland is traditionally at the forefront of European Russophobia.

War certainly makes a direct impact on the economic sector, and if there are reports that say export explosions occur then it is reasonable, but I'm sure market law will always work so that a country that is very dependent on Russia will continue to buy and not care about the embargo or economy sanction.

"Export explosions"?  Dude, did you understand anything about the quote in the OP?  I don't think there's a language misinterpretation on your part; I think you're just shitposting.

This thread was from May, and I haven't been keeping up with what's going on between Russia and Ukraine, but by no means have I heard any horror stories about famine in Russia (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong, and I'll admit I haven't read all the posts in this thread), so I don't think their economy imploded.

I also agree with those who said the article was a political one more so than a typical academic economics piece.  Whether there was a Polish author or not, it's hard to keep personal worldviews out of an article like this one.  Not impossible, though.

There are two sides with two extreme/unrealistic views on the situation. One side says that the increased energy prices means West is going to freeze to death and the other side is saying that the shrunk Russian economy is going to starve them to death.

The thing is that this is a war, an economical war between East and West. They are hitting each other and the damage is seen on both sides. Interestingly enough nobody analyzes things like this. For example they say Russian imports have gone down by $X but they don't say that these imports were coming from the West and that means the Western exports have also gone down by $X. They also don't mention that Russia can find replacements for most of those imports but EU for example doesn't have the same option.
Take Siemens for example. The company can not find a replacement to sell their turbines to but Russia can find another manufacturer elsewhere.

And you probably won't hear it. But it's too early to rejoice for the Russians, now I'll explain :)
To feel the essence of the problem - you need to visit Russia. And do the following:
1. Visit Moscow and St. Petersburg.
2. Take a car and drive through the regions - this is 100-200 km from Moscow and beyond.

In Moscow and St. Petersburg, famine is unlikely to come - all the money is concentrated there, which is essentially stolen from other regions. In Russia, all resources and income from them are concentrated in the hands of a small group of kleptomaniac terrorists who systematically rob the whole country.
But in the regions ... In the regions of Russia, people have NEVER lived normally. Poverty, vice, degradation, beggarly life, moral poverty - it's all about the Russian regions. And really only having been there, you will understand what I wanted to convey about you - THERE IS NO WHERE TO LIVE! People don't live, they exist! They receive small salaries and pensions, there is no normal medicine, no normal food, no clean water, ... The crisis cannot really affect them! For the simple reason that the crisis takes away what you have, and they have nothing all their lives! These are not horror stories, this is Russian reality, although 24 * 7 propaganda on TV tells how the whole world envy them :))

The great thing about economy is that is quite resistant to fake. You can "precision post" you way to any argument such as "if the name of someone is Kowalsky, the guy must be Polish and hate Russians". The problem is that the economy does not care about what you write, it is there destroying your future and the future of those you care for no matter what.

Again, amazing to observe how the RF can be at the same time killing by the thousands and playing the victim.

I am aware that your knowledge of history is think as spring ice, but you may want to read about Venezuela in the 90's and how it ended.

We discussed about Putin, and the "common Russians' sentiment" about the war before. I have a new shower thought. What if the U.S. is trying to "wipe out" Russian military equipment in Central and Eastern Europe by not making the war end, then when it's finished, the U.S. will have a monopoly for military equipment in those countries across Europe, making them their everlasting vassals.

Since the day of Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine, there have been many polls about the Russian population's support for the war in Ukraine. As a rule, the percentage of such support invariably fluctuated between 70-75 percent. One can, of course, make allowances for the fact that the Russians are afraid to tell the truth in such polls, but we do not see any large-scale protests in Russia against the war and the massacres of the civilian population of Ukraine. In addition, in telephone conversations with the occupiers in Ukraine, their relatives either advise to rape Ukrainian women more, or order household items and even linen for themselves when committing robberies of civilian dwellings, or even bring the head of a Ukrainian from the war, or they advise killing everyone, even children, otherwise they will then grow up and take revenge on the Russians. The Russians have been zombified by Putin's long-term propaganda, but this still does not relieve them of responsibility for what they have done in Ukraine.

As for the US interest in the destruction of Russian military equipment in Ukraine during hostilities, then, of course, there should be such an interest. After all, the hands of the Ukrainians are now weakening one of their main potential opponents. And this is being successfully done by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in connection with which Russia is now experiencing an acute shortage of military equipment, especially tanks and armored vehicles, and ammunition and even small arms, since attacks by Russians with wooden sticks or shovels have already been recorded.

In addition, helping Ukraine to defend itself, European countries supply it with military equipment, mainly of Soviet production, which Ukrainians do not need to additionally master and which is immediately used at the front. Instead, the countries of Europe are adopting NATO weapons, which showed much better in this war than Russian ones.

News from Russia is like a saying. I don't know if it will be possible to convey its meaning into English, but I will try :)
"Things in the country were going badly ... No, it's not that it's completely bad, you can even say it's good. But every day it's getting worse and worse" :)))

A small selection of news from "great Russia":
- "Russia urgently asks Kazakhstan for help after Turkey's refusal to transit sanctioned goods."
A great country, as someone else wrote - the second economy of the world (yes, yes - someone wrote such nonsense), begging from Kazakhstan so that Kazakhstan would carry at least something high-tech to the country of the progressive Middle Ages :) SUCCESS, what can I say! :)
- Turkey does not have money for the construction of a gas hub, which was proposed by the President of the Republic of Armenia Vladimir Putin (an international criminal), and if Russia wants to implement the project, it will have to take over the financing, said member of the Security and Foreign Policy Council under the President of Turkey Chagry Erhan.
- The spiral of demographic disaster continues to unwind in Russia, despite the trillion-dollar budget spending on the national project "Demography" and the president's demands to stop the population decline.
The life expectancy of men in the Russian Federation for 2019-21 decreased by almost 5 years - to 64.2 years, writes The Economist, citing official statistics.
I hope everyone understands where the money went under this program! :)
- Before meeting with Putin, 15 top managers and billionaires fled from the largest business association in Russia
- Well, "cherry on the cake": the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin. It is reported by BBC News. Also, a warrant was issued for the arrest of Maria Lvova-Belova, Commissioner for Children's Rights of the Russian Federation.

“Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, born on October 7, 1952, the President of the Russian Federation, is allegedly responsible for the war crime of illegal deportation of the population (children) and their transfer from the occupied territories of Ukraine to the territory of the Russian Federation,” the ICC said in a release.

So - from the "king of serfs" to the "criminal", according to such a "heroic" article ...

War is business. None of the military equipment is given free of charge to other countries. Never mind the new ones, even the used ones are still being sold.
When the US helps Ukraine today in the military field, is it given for free? Of course not. There are consequences that will be borne by Ukraine.
How is it possible for the US to monopolize military equipment throughout Europe and destroy all military equipment purchased from Russia. And the US is also unable to replace all other countries' military equipment.
What we have to understand is that war is a business. Every time there is a war going on, that's when buying and selling of military equipment, such as fighter planes and others, runs smoothly.
In addition, war is a method to test the sophistication of military tools. Many countries have developed military equipment, such as fighter aircraft, but they have never carried out direct and serious trials.
Do not think of peace if the interests of a few people have not been realized. Don't stop the war, but stop the interests that result in the war. Maybe that way peace will come.

To paraphrase you, we get this:
All doctors are killers! Even if a person did not die in a hospital, the doctors are to blame!
- all illnesses because of doctors! there were no doctors and medicine - there would be no diseases!
- science and medicine, this is all because of which everyone will die
- When you are treated for a deadly disease - you are killed!
- When you are not killed, they profit, and then they kill you and profit again!


Really bullshit? :)

For at least the following reasons:
- Most of the aid from the US is gratuitous
However, also without payment, some of the weapons are transferred to us by other countries, and these are not front sights on trunks :)
- The supply of weapons to Ukraine is not a cause, but a consequence of an attempt by a terrorist country, Russia, led by a war criminal, to destroy Ukraine
- Of course, there is a positive economic effect for countries producing weapons - communism has not been built, so production is not free :) But they are financed by the "donor" state, which provides assistance
- Moreover, since 2016, the Ukrainian military industry has also begun to develop - these are jobs, taxes, support for the army.

So if we talk about "benefit", then not in terms of profit, but in terms of normal economic relations, in such a difficult time for Ukraine.

Do you yourself believe in it? The USSR paid off its lend-lease debts in 2006, 61 years after the end of World War II. I think it will take Ukraine 150 years to pay off its debts for the supply of weapons, this is according to optimistic forecasts.

 ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

I just can’t understand in any way - you either believe that you can lie so primitively, or really don’t control the situation at all, and fantasize about any topic ?! :) And I understand what's worse! :)

I will give you another lesson of REAL history, it’s not difficult for me.
Lend-Lease USA-USSR.
In 1941, realizing that from yesterday's "bosom friend", with whom the USSR began to destroy Europe, a real threat arose for the USSR, and the German offensive could not be stopped by throwing the corpses of soldiers of the Red Army of the USSR, the USSR began to ask for help from the United States. Well, who has already saved both tsarist Muscovy and the young USSR-USA many times! And this time the USSR asked for help. Lendlis began work in 1941. Do you know the terms or did you make them up? Just in case, let me remind you:
- everything that was delivered to the USSR (from BUTTONS and boots, to aviation kerosene and the aircraft themselves), and everything that was used, destroyed, destroyed ... NOT PAYABLE..
And in order to understand the scale of deliveries, a few facts about how much was delivered:

Aircraft 14 795
Dances 7 056
Passenger jeeps 51 503
Trucks 375 883
Motorcycles 35 170
Tractors 8 071
Rifles 8 218
Automatic weapons 131,633
Pistols 12 997
Explosives 345,735 tons
Dynamite 70,400,000 pounds
Gunpowder 127,000 tons
TNT 271,500,000 pounds
Tiluola 237,400,000 pounds
Detonators 903 000
Building equipment $10,910,000
Freight wagons 11,155
Locomotives 1 981
Cargo ships 90
Anti-submarine ships 105
Torpedo boats 197
Radar 445
Engines for ships 7 784
Food stocks 4,478,000 tons
Machinery and equipment $1,078,965,000
Non-ferrous metals 802,000 tons
Oil products 2,670,000 tons
Chemicals 842,000 tons
Cotton 106,893,000 tons
Leather 49,860 tons
Tire 3,786,000
Army boots 15,417,000 pairs
Blankets 1 541 590
Alcohol 331 066 l
Buttons 257 723 498 pcs.

Many of them were used for decades after the "victory". In the first, most difficult year of the war, British and American tanks covered more than a third of the needs of the USSR. A quarter of all guns and one in five wartime aircraft are also from abroad.

Many positions accounted for 50 to 90% of the total that the USSR used in the war against its "friend".

- Lend-lease property left after the end of the war and suitable for civilian purposes will be paid in whole or in part on the basis of long-term loans provided by the United States (mostly interest-free loans).

Lend-lease provisions also assumed that after the war, if the American side was interested, undestroyed and unlost equipment and equipment should be returned to the United States.

And now for the calculations.
The volume of lend-lease, in favor of the USSR
Volume in prices 1941-1945 billion $11.3
Volume in 2008 billion $ ~160

At the 1948 negotiations, the Soviet representatives agreed to pay only a small amount and were met with a predictable refusal from the American side. Negotiations in 1949 also came to nothing. In 1951, the Americans twice reduced the amount of the payment, which became equal to $800 million, but the Soviet side agreed to pay only $300 million (!!!!)

An agreement with the USSR on the procedure for repaying lend-lease debts was concluded only in 1972. According to this agreement, the USSR undertook to pay $722 million by 2001, including interest. By July 1973, three payments were made for a total of $48 million, after which the payments were stopped. In June 1990, during the talks between the presidents of the United States and the USSR, the parties returned to the discussion of debt. A new deadline for the final repayment of the debt was set - 2030, and the amount - $674 million.

Now let's look at the prices:
Lend-lease, volume in prices 2008 billion $ ~160
The actual total repayments are approximately $1 billion over 60 years. This is the "gratitude" of the USSR, which, in fact, Lend-Lease saved from loss and total defeat.

Ukraine is not a deceitful and vile USSR - we know the concept of honor, dignity and duty to those who helped us!

Biden signed a lend-lease on the supply of aid to Ukraine back in May last year, but it did not work, and it is possible that deliveries will not be made under it at all. Lend-Lease was a fallback option for Biden as a direct aid to Ukraine, if the US Congress had  refused to provide such assistance. But for now, Congress, on the contrary, encourages Biden to provide more assistance to Ukraine, in particular, with F-16 aircraft and Abrams tanks, and most of this assistance is free.

If Ukraine will compensate for the weapons and other assistance supplied to it, it will be largely due to reparations from Russia, and judging by the significant material and human damage inflicted on Ukraine, the Russians will have to pay for more than one generation.

Do not try to explain the reality to the supporters of the "Russian world", they react painfully to this. They need at least some kind of "fairy tale" in which Ukraine will have at least something bad :)

And I'm sure you yourself are watching - all their arguments are simple, primitive lies. As for example, about the same lend-lease. I answered this lie, showed how the situation looks REALLY, and not in fantasy and habitually, for the "Russian world", lies. But the most interesting thing is that there will most likely not be an answer - this opponent has repeatedly exposed himself in a very unattractive light, and when facts are given to him, he simply "goes into the bushes" :)

Regarding today's assistance to Ukraine - indeed, more than 85% of the assistance is allocated on the basis of a non-paid assistance program, at the expense of the helper countries. Many countries of the so-called "ex-Warsaw Pact", which have a lot of equipment produced in the USSR, and which they also give away free of charge.
And even a significant part of the financial assistance is either for symbolic interest or also non-refundable financial assistance. But in the minds of the "Russian world" the West is always "a greedy capitalist who will sell his own mother for profit" :)

Right but Russia may be facing challenges and condemnation on the international stage, it is still a significant player in global affairs with a large population and a vast territory. Russia's natural resources, particularly its oil and gas reservas, also give it significant economic leverige in the global market.

As you mentioned, many countries are dependent on Russia for their energy needs, and this could make it difficult for them to completely sever ties with Russia. The high gas prices in Europe, for example, have made many European countries more reliant on Russian gas imports.
Over all while Russia may be facing challenges and criticism on the international stage, it is still a significant player in global affairs, and it is unlikely to implode completely. But, it will need to address its economic and political challenges in order to maintain its influence in the world

Do you think it is time to reassess the claim made in the article that OP shared almost a year ago?
In it the "The Institute of International Finance" claims that Russian economy is "imploding" and is going to "collapse" and the GDP shrink by -30% by end of 2022.

Now I don't know which source is the most reliable but they are reporting numbers that are close. For example IMF reports a slight growth in Russia's GDP in 2022, some other sources talk about a tiny decrease (between 1 to 2%).

I think we can all agree that both businessinsider and IIF were full of it and were spreading propaganda. Of course we bitcoiners already knew that considering how many FUD businessinsider has spread about bitcoin.

I'm sorry, but you are taking ERRONOUS assumptions or narratives as a basis, and drawing the wrong conclusions accordingly.
Let me help you a little, shall we? :)
1. Russia is not a "significant player" - in nothing! Yes Yes. Russia is just a substitute territory and .. that's all, nothing more :) GDP has already become less than 1% in the world ranking :) Is this a SIGNIFICANT indicator?
2. No one depends on Russia in terms of hydrocarbon supplies. Rather, Russia depends on whether there will be at least someone, at least some money (for example, rupees and yuan :)) to buy oil and gas that the EU has stopped buying! By the way, recently - yes, the EU was the largest, dependent buyer of gas and oil. But those days are over :)
3. In a military sense, Russia turned out to be a complete fake, and the arms market is also lost.
4. International status... A complete fiasco - from a country "second to the poles of the bipolar world," Russia has turned into a raw materials appendage and an obedient guinea pig of China. By the way, for understanding that from the economic side, Russia is an empty place, some statistics that are very easy to check:

- Of the total imports in Russia - approximately 34%, these are imports from China.
Of the total exports of China - exports to Russia - about 2% of total exports :)

Well, what significance would you like to talk about? :)

That is, you want to say that if any strong state attacks your country, you call for peace so that no one helps you repel aggression? Did I understand correctly? Or does this only apply to those cases when your country will not participate in the war?

If the world community only watches indifferently as the big states attack and capture the weak, destroy their inhabitants and destroy their infrastructure to the ground, then they themselves will someday become a victim of such aggression. The strength of society is unity. Otherwise, it will be very convenient for the aggressor to absorb neighboring states in turn.

Russia needs Ukraine only as a launching pad for attacking other countries. Initially, Putin planned to attack the Baltic countries - Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. But then he changed his mind and decided to start with Ukraine.
Therefore, your opinion is not only wrong, but also extremely dangerous for collective security.

The Russian economy "explodes" not only because of the fall in exports. Next month, it will be a year and a half since Russia's full-scale military invasion of Ukraine continues in order to seize its territory. In the east of Ukraine, the Russian occupiers have not been able to significantly advance deep into the territory of Ukraine during this time. Now the fighting is going on in the area of the airport near Donetsk, where they were fought back in 2014.

In the south, parts of the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions are still occupied, but the large-scale battle for these regions is entering its final stage since the beginning of the offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in early June. The southern front of the Russians is already bursting at the seams. Although the Russians created a three-level defense there up to 27 kilometers deep, mined the entire area along the offensive path of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and had multiple superiority in manpower and equipment, especially in air defense, artillery and aviation, thanks to targeted pinpoint strikes by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the situation is now leveling off (except for the continued superiority of the Russians in aviation), and in terms of the number of tanks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine they even have a slight advantage.

So, in Ukraine at the time of the attack in February last year, there were 987 tanks, but thanks to the capture of Russian equipment and the help of allies in the amount of 471 tanks, now the Armed Forces of Ukraine have about 1,500 tanks. In Russia at the time of the attack there were about 3400 serviceable tanks, now their number has decreased to about 1400.

Thanks to well-established counter-battery combat, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are now actively knocking out enemy air defense and artillery. But in Russia there are still approximately 1900 artillery systems against 1100 in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Considering that over the past month, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have destroyed approximately 680 artillery systems, in a few weeks the Russian southern front in Ukraine may crumble due to a lack of artillery and air defense.
As for manpower, Russia has even transferred units from the eastern front to the southern front, bringing its last operational reserves into battle. And she has already run out of strategic ones. Therefore, panic among the Russian military is growing. But the townsfolk in Russia continue to be fed propaganda, although there a significant part of them are already beginning to see clearly.

Against the backdrop of the ongoing collapse of the ruble and the growth of the budget deficit, the upcoming military defeat will be a deadly shock for the Russians.

^^^ The picture of Russian economy imploding has been painted for one and half years now. But on the ground the situation seems to be quite normal in Russia. Apart from the fact that the Russian Ruble is getting devalued, the economy is still resilient. And also, Russian exports of wheat and coal are at record highs, despite the reduction in exports of oil and gas. For the year 2022-23, Russia exported 45.5 million tonnes of wheat, compared to 34.5 million tonnes in the year preceding that. They are expected to export 47.5 million tonnes in 2023-24, which is more than EU and Canada.

Yes, Russia's exports of wheat and other grains are increasing this year, given that Russia is stealing it from Ukraine. Now from the ports of Ukraine, especially Berdyansk, Ukrainian grain is massively exported. Although, almost everything that can be taken out of the occupied territory of Ukraine is stolen. But rejoicing at the stolen is hardly worth it.

It's been over a year since the war began and it's quite shocking that the war has lingered this long. No one predicted the longevity of the war. But this is where we are and as it seems with all the unfolding drama the war has brought to the Russian economy and military, things might longer than we expect.

Looking at the effect the war has had on the Russian economy, I think it all struggled at the inception of the sanctions placed on them by the U.N, U.S, U.K and other powerful countries. However, things have flipped dramatically in favour of the Russian government to some extent as they have been able to form some sort of economic alliance with top energy producers globally including China and Saudi Arabia. These moves have to control favour the Russian government in the area of energy supplies and this stabilised the Russian economy.

More interesting developments may unfold. So, let's expect more twists...

Starting a military invasion of Ukraine, Putin expected to conquer all of Ukraine in a few days and install his puppet government there. To do this, at the same time as the invasion, the former President of Ukraine Yanukovych was brought to Belarus, who had previously fled to Russia and who was actually under the control of Putin. Therefore, Putin did not count on any Western sanctions. He hoped that Ukraine would fall even before any action was taken in Europe and the United States. But these plans were thwarted by the people of Ukraine and its armed forces. Only when they saw that the Ukrainians offered serious resistance and inflicted a major defeat on the Russian troops, after which they were forced to flee from the central and northern parts of Ukraine, so as not to be completely defeated, the NATO countries began to provide assistance to Ukraine, since they were interested in the military and economic weakening of Russia as a potential adversary, and without the loss of their soldiers, but by the hands of the Ukrainians.

Speaking of Russia's new economic union, do you mean the BRICS union? It is unlikely that he will significantly improve the current deplorable economic situation in Russia, which arose after Putin foolishly attacked Ukraine.

Actually predicted this to drag out for long until one side relents and quits cause there's no way they'd both give up their stands. Russia's living in their delusional world where they think Ukraine's still part of them while of course the now sovereign state of Ukraine is fighting for their freedom. Economy can wait, they have allies that will help them fund and further their battle, plus at this point in time Russia's already forcing a huge portion of their male population to sign up to this needless war, so manpower wouldn't be a problem to them.

Just a few months ago I saw some news about Saudi buying Russian Gold, there's that too, plus a country which I forgot was also found to be financing the war on the side of Russia, there's a lot of things that are causing this war to drag out this long, it's not a matter of when they would stop, it's a matter of how.

A bit of reality :)
- The Central Bank has recorded a precipitous drop in the inflow of foreign currency into Russia. In April-June, Russia received only $5.4 billion of balance of payments surplus - the difference between the main currency flows in and out of the country. Compared to the same period last year, the economy's notional foreign currency profit collapsed 14 times, or by 93%, and if we compare it to the first quarter of this year - almost threefold.
The result recorded by the Central Bank was the worst since 2020, when, amid the pandemic, oil prices fell to their lowest levels since the 1990s and Russian oil producers were forced to drastically cut production.
- Rosstat reported a sharp drop in drug output in Russia. Critically dependent on imports of substances - raw materials for the production of medicines - Russian pharmaceutical factories faced sharp price increases from counterparties. While 85% of substances in Russia are imported, prices for individual substances have jumped 1.5-2 times.
- Putin demanded that scientists urgently create technologies to replace Western ones  ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
- VTsIOM has recorded a drop in Putin's rating to its lowest since the war began
- The Kremlin has banned doubts about the stability of the Russian economy - that's how easy and reliable it is to stabilize the economy !  ;D
- VTB head tells Putin about stability of Russian banks after 757 billion-ruble loss
- Russia ranks first in Europe in the number of new HIV infections. We remember Russian slogans - "AIDS is punishment for homosexuality" ! Seems to be true  :)

PS And about greatness :)

April 16, 2013: Putin demanded to get people out of slums.
September 28, 2021: Putin demanded to get people out of slums.
November 30, 2022: We need to get people out of the slums
It feels like people are going there themselves, saving themselves from a rich life in a great country :)

In the meantime, here is (https://databankfiles.worldbank.org/public/ddpext_download/GDP_PPP.pdf) the World Bank Group's 2022 report, July 1, 2023, GDP at purchasing power parity. What can I say, it is very shameful for the economy, twice torn to shreds, under the yoke of sanctions from all progressive mankind, to be in this list in fifth place, displacing Germany. ;D

At present, Russia's position is still a country that gets witnesses from the European Union and even the United States, but Russia's condition is far from the expectations of several great countries. Having gas sources in sufficient quantities makes Russia's position more stable and tends to be profitable because the system of exports and imports to Asian countries, which are mostly non-aligned, makes Russia's economic condition much better although it is still pending fines due to the war invasion to Ukraine. My country Indonesia, have good communicate with Russia and several time import Russia product as cheapest values than other county and more beneficial than import except Russia's product.

Invasion war to Ukraine still interested topic for discussing and reason why several European Union suspend with Russia from all sector, not only with economic side but also all kinds of Russia's sport have been banned.

It is the most shameful thing the US and EU have done, showing their stalemate in the war against Russia. I remember in all sports, especially football, they always uphold and uphold the spirit of not discriminating against race, color and putting politics aside to get the most fairness. But then, the US and the EU did things that were contrary to the principles and rules they had set for themselves.

And that's also why I think the establishment of BRICS is the right thing to do because we need a balance of world economic and political power. Don't let them all be controlled, manipulated by a few entities and create inequality in the world.

German industrial output was sustained primarily by cheap Russian hydrocarbons. In order to please their American overlords, the Germans cut down the very branch in which they were sitting on. Now their manufacturing companies such as BASF and Volkswagen have been forced to cut output and their profits have been reduced. On the other hand, Russian economy is doing OK. There were predictions for economic meltdown by various western experts. One and half years have passed and Russian economy is doing just fine.

1. what a selective position you have :) If not favorable data - "who is the World Bank - a puppet of the west". When favorable - "well, look, the World Bank itself writes, yeah !"
- And most importantly - you should have parsed the topic a bit, and understand why this information does not reflect the reality of the picture. Let me explain. Everything, where GDP is the basis, concerning Russia has a small nuance.  We know exactly what Gross Domestic Product is. Yes, yes, I know that you are talking about the derivative of this indicator, but it is not fundamental, because the problem is in the "foundation" of measurements.
So, GDP is "a macroeconomic indicator reflecting the market value of all final goods and services (i.e., intended for direct consumption, use or application) produced during the year in all sectors of the economy in the territory of a particular state for consumption, export and accumulation, regardless of the nationality of the factors of production used."

Everything seems to be good and clear. But a nuance. Almost 50% of this indicator, today Russia counts with the military-industrial complex. That is, with the production of weapons for waging terrorist wars.  These are cartridges, shells, tanks, guns, small arms, gunpowder, etc. But the problem is that all this does not benefit the economy, it is just destroyed money, because all this is soon turned into burnt, rusty iron on the territory of Ukraine. These weapons are not sold and do not bring income. Therefore, the indicator from the point of view of "positive" is highly overstated. And it is easy to check - compare inflation, price growth index (only not government prices, you understand), income growth index, and you will realize - according to the report, it is beautiful, but if you get away from the monitor and look around - everything is slowly sinking into a bad-smelling swamp. By the way, inflation - count the fall of the ruble, the lack of proportional growth of real incomes. On the one hand, the mass of worthless phantoms has grown almost several times since the beginning of a new wave of terrorism against Ukraine. On the other hand, wages have not grown during this time. No, there is indexation in a dozen percent, but +10% when the mass of money has grown many times is a weak consolation. However, the positive thing is that now everyone can count "good" GDP - there is more money :)

Are you hinting that your point of view is not selective and is distinguished by a special objectivity in relation to Russia? Funny. ;D

I refer to the data of the World Bank, because it is very difficult to suspect him of loyalty to Russia. And I refer to the data on GDP at purchasing power parity, because, unlike nominal GDP, it takes into account problems with national currencies and focuses on the fact that you can actually buy a ruble or euro weakened by inflation.

 ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Dear Sithara007 - you decided to follow the path of one not very smart colleague here on the forum, who here tried to tell everyone that Germany is on the verge of bankruptcy, because. "thousands of enterprises went bankrupt and closed" due to the fact that "great Russia" stopped supplying gas? And then, when it turned out that there was not a Russian audience here, and that it was customary to use brains and information here on the forum, it turned out .... It turned out that the indicators are absolutely familiar to Germany and there is no connection between these statistics and Russian economic terrorism.
And then this author was dipped head in shit, everyone at least a little bit knows how to work with information. Do not repeat his "success", this smell will accompany you for a very long time :)

Tell us better how the government of India buys cheap Russian oil, and then tells the population of the country tales about "expensive oil", and robs their pockets by selling them expensive gasoline? This is a really interesting observation! Or have you sharply fallen in price of gasoline? :)

The way China is swallowing everything in the West, in the near future nobody is going to even remember German and Japanese car brands. They've already overtaken a large part of their market by having access to energy and cheap labor.

P.S. Even funnier is when China is also swallowing US. Curiously enough nobody seems to be talking about the biggest news of past decade about Blackrock and MSCI that are slowly basically migrating to China. That is $13+ trillion dollars leaving United States :D
P.P.S. The funniest of all is of course the upcoming US election. Guess who are the two candidates that 300+ million Americans are forced to choose between? LOL A senile old man who can't even walk straight and an idiot who is wanted for multiple crimes of many different natures including treason and terrorism in US and outside US ;D

Off topic, but for understanding - Saturday, 19 hours, Kyiv time. Ukraine is subjected to massive shelling from the territory of Russia, and .. Belarus. Everything you need to know about "peace initiatives" and "need to negotiate."
PS Today Belarus is becoming an official aggressor - civilian cities of Ukraine are being shelled from its territory. Outside the window, you can hear the work of anti-missile defense .....

Very inaccurate Calibers and Daggers are used to shell civilian cities

While we are discussing about Russian economy getting "imploded" (as we have been doing ever since February 2022), Urals crude is now trading above the price cap that was set by G7. As of now, Urals is trading at $69.84 per barrel (FOB prices), which is the highest level it had for a while. Last time Urals was trading at ~$70 barrel was in November 2022, when Brent crude was trading at close to $100 per barrel. Indian refineries have been forced to cut back on imports from Russia due to narrowing discounts. And still Western nations are claiming that their price cap is working and Russian economy is on its way to a meltdown.

Everything you need to know about the success of the Russian economy, and wise decisions :)

"The government earned a trillion on the ruble's collapse

The collapse of the Russian currency market, which raised the dollar to almost 100 rubles and the euro to above 106 rubles, has shed balm on the wounds of the Russian budget.

By the end of the year, the federal treasury will receive about a trillion rubles in excess oil and gas revenues, Bloomberg reports, citing non-public government calculations.

In January-July, every month the budget was undercollecting raw materials rent compared to this level, but in August for the first time it will receive more, the Ministry of Finance reported last week: revenues will exceed the base level by Br74.3 billion. And this trend will continue, according to Bloomberg sources familiar with the situation. It follows from their data that in September-December the budget will receive an average of 230 billion rubles of excess revenues every month."

I.e. the budget revenues are obtained due to...no no no no, not the growth of the MIC. At the expense of inflation growth ! :))))

https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2023/08/07/pravitelstvo-zarabotalo-trillion-na-obvalnom-padenii-rublya-a51269

^^^^ One of the rare occasions when the government would prefer a devaluing national currency. What is happening here is that Russian government receives most of the foreign revenues in the form of USD or CNY. But their expenses (including salaries and pensions) are being paid out in Russian Rubles. So a devaluing Ruble is preferable to the Russian government. In the end, the common people will suffer since their expenses will go up from inflation. But for the short term, the government would prefer the national currency losing its value.

I really don't understand why countries promote wars so much, even though the attacker may benefit from it, they create a lot of shortages, famine, harm both their citizens and those on the opposite side, that is where he asked me that is the humanity that we have?, everything is really based on money, because during this confrontation, for example, the arms trade moves a lot, or the foundations that are supposedly in charge of helping the harmed, but i am sure that those in charge of that also take taking advantage of it, they don't give everything they collect, and there are many more organizations of this type that use these events to obtain profit... making them see as if they were necessary. and also, touching on another point that i think is important to take into account with the war between Russia and Ukraine, is that despite the sanctions imposed on Russia, this country is considered one of the world powers and distributes essential products to the majority of their neighbors, so as such, those who are isolated from the conflict have to ignore these sanctions and continue buying said goods, Thus prolonging the war by not contributing to the pressure for them to settle.. thus remaining stable in a certain way, said country.

I have some sobering news for those who believe that the Russian economy is about to "implode". Urals FOB prices are at all-time high. Last week, FOB price at Novorossiysk was $73.57 per barrel, which represents a discount of just $14.80 per barrel to benchmark Brent. And this is well above the G7 price cap of $60 per barrel. Freight rates have also decreased, making it profitable for importers to chose for Russian crude. Russian diesel was trading at $108.98 per barrel, which is again well above the price cap. The freight cost from Russia to India has now declined to just $4.5 per barrel.

News from the most stable economy that is backed by expensive oil :))))

The Bank of Russia is considering the return of strict currency control measures to stop the collapse of the ruble.

At a meeting on Tuesday, the Central Bank's board of directors discussed the introduction of mandatory sale of foreign currency earnings by exporting companies, Bloomberg reported citing four sources familiar with the situation.

Three Interfax sources, directly involved in the discussion, say that almost all foreign currency earnings - up to 90% - may fall under the rule of compulsory sale. Such measures were discussed on Monday at a meeting with the participation of major exporters, the government and the Central Bank.

PS For information: in Ukraine during the most difficult time, after the beginning of Russian aggression, there was also a forced sale of currency. I work under contracts with the EU, and my business is paid in Euros. So there was a period when I was selling 50% of my currency receipts. But... this provision of the law has long been canceled. And we don't have oil, gas, "40% of the world's natural resources". :)








Dear Sithara007 !
Are you familiar with such a concept as "cognitive dissonance" ?
I will tell you by example - if someone says that the Russian economy is stable, oil is sold in huge volumes, and its price is "exorbitant", but at the same time in reality the ruble is flying into the abyss, budget revenues in currency have fallen by half. This is exactly about "cognitive dissonance" :)

And let me remind you again, although I see you just try to reject this fact, because it breaks your fictitious story about stability: 90%+ of the terrorist country's oil is bought by India. China has already refocused on Iraqi oil. India buys for 2 reasons: cheap and can buy for ... RUPIES !
So don't write about high price in dollars, it doesn't exist. It is on papers, but all settlements for oil India makes in RUPIES :) And rupees are not dollars, by the way dollars - for which India forbade russia to change its rupees :)

Yes, and that's a logical decision. While the country is being artificially prevented from receiving USD and EUR, some companies probably have quite a lot of foreign currency accumulated from export deals. I don't see how this news can be negative or shameful for Russia.


Yeah, who needs oil, gas, other resources and all that crap when you can receive foreign financial aid for free?   ;D Since the beginning of 2023 and up to May Ukraine has received hundreds of billions in financial support! US alone has injected a whopping $71 billion, EU about $35 billion! About 40% (now possibly even more) of Ukraine's budget is being sponsored by the West.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303432/total-bilateral-aid-to-ukraine/


Well, that's a lie! A portion (eventually becoming bigger) of all trade is being performed in Chinese yuan. Initially, the share of yuan was around 10% but it's getting bigger and bigger eventually.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/india-refiners-start-yuan-payments-russian-oil-imports-sources-2023-07-03/

The aim is to isolate Russia in the first place, with the aim of influencing it to change its positions. And I support this position if it had real results in reality, but we notice that the Russian government does not care about these measures and continues its policies of obstinacy, indifferent to the direct impact of this on its people in its various segments, especially those outside Russia.
At the same time, I find that it is an absurd measure, since it did not achieve results in previous experiences with Iran, for example, or Israel, since preventing it from major international events did not deter it from the atrocities it is carrying out.

I don't remember the US team being banned from international sport during the Afghan war... Libya, Iraq, Syria, Serbia... many seem to ignore it but the US army IS in Syria RIGHT NOW and from the legal point of view the have absolutely no right to stay there. Double standards?

1. Yes, and we are grateful to the civilized world for the support it gives Ukraine in the fight against this new brown plague of the world ! Although in Muscovy they constantly squeal that "the west is tired, the west is worn out, the west will no longer support Ukraine". But no, to "destroy the cancerous tumor of the world" - Rashism, the world will find forces and means, otherwise the world will be destroyed for many decades or even centuries. The world has already realized that agreements and normal interaction with the carriers of the ideology of Rashism are impossible.

2. No, it is just the truth :) And they have been howling about it in the swamps of mordor for a long time :) google "russia problems of mutual settlements with india".
"Russian oil producers, who have ramped up shipments to India 11 times, are facing an inability to get a return for the crude they have sold. According to Reuters, Indian banks have about 39 billion dollars hanging in the balance, at the current exchange rate it is 3.6 trillion rubles, which amounts to" - check ! remember a simple principle - tell the truth, and you will not need to make up "facts" and memorize previously told lies. That is the advantage of the truth. Of course you will try to say that Reuters is not the right source, and you need a source where Putin himself talks about it, and in general it's all fake..... But this is REALITY and TRUTH :)


PS The link is great, but it's about something else - in China "great Russia" can at least buy cheap shirptoreb, 10 dollar phones, socks, nails for yuan :) Well, all the things that the "great economy of Russia" is not able to produce and that the masses demand. And what does India offer in exchange for rupees? Sari, spices, and primitive medicines. India does not sell higher quality goods to russia...

And a very important point - India is getting rid of the Yuan, because it does not want to become an appendage and slave of China, with its project for not the smartest BRICS members "dedollarization = yuanization".


You did well here - you helped to show who is an appendage of India and China  ;D
By the way, notice - not a word about payment in rubles  ;D ;D ;D

I think you got me wrong. I did not say that the United States of America was excluded from participating in any of the major international sporting events, and I am almost certain that this will not happen soon, regardless of the degree of its crimes. At the same time, the penalty of exclusion included other countries whose rulers were accused of hostile practices. The most obvious example is Israel, which is prevented from participating in many international events, and there are countries that do not recognize Israel as a state in the first place.

Another block of news from a country with a "strong secured ruble, stable economy" on which "the whole world depends" ;D

- Russian regions are left without fuel at gas stations. Gasoline has begun to disappear from gas stations in Russian regions, and in agrarian regions there is a shortage of diesel fuel, Izvestia reports with reference to representatives of the fuel business.
- Russians will see bread prices rise sharply after Putin's decision to pull out of the grain deal. Russian bread producers are preparing to sharply raise prices for their products in the fall.  According to them, bread may rise in price by 10% due to sanctions, the collapse of the ruble and, among other things, Russia's withdrawal from the grain deal.
- More than a quarter of Russians admitted to a complete lack of savings. Given that in Russia it is common to understate negative data - most likely 50% do not have a penny of reserves.
- Cabs across Russia will switch to Lada despite the protests of drivers :)
- Audi, following BMW and Mercedes, disconnected Russian dealers from the software
- Health Ministry urged hospitals to prepare for the disappearance of nearly 200 drugs
- Russian arms sales abroad have plummeted more than threefold
- Russia can't get $39 billion for oil sold to India
- The collapse of Gazprom's exports has left Russian pipe mills without orders. The collapse of Gazprom's
- And a bit about russia's "friends": Iran has started to squeeze russian oil out of china with discounts


And these two news are perfect :
- Siloviki suggested Putin to fire Shoigu, impose martial law and start general mobilization.
- In the State Duma called rumors of a new mobilization in September a throw-in

Total: so there will be mobilization :)

And the expected event - Moon 25, finished its journey as expected :) The reason for the accident - haste and show, an attempt to get ahead of ... India :) "The first space country" became "the last comic country".

 

Oh our little lying propagandist shill friend is still here? Why don't you join your heroic compatriots, the "warriors of light" on the front lines? They are waiting for you in trenches, some cannon fodder is always welcome. Russia is about to launch an attack on Harkiv, immediately after they'll capture Kupyansk. So every soldier counts.


OMG this is so logical, the most logical thing I've read this year. No means yes. No sources, no proof, nothing. OMG, what a bozo...  ;D

Meanwhile, Ukraine gets mad on the Western journalists for reporting huge casualties and bans them from entering the areas where fighting is going on:


Source: https://www.tellerreport.com/news/2023-08-22-le-temps--kiev-almost-completely-banned-foreign-media-from-traveling-to-the-front-line.SyZUDkxMa3.html

Russia had a chance to take over Ukraine, at least temporarily, in the early days of the invasion in February 2022. At that time, the leadership of Ukraine did not believe in a full-scale invasion of the Russian army into Ukraine, despite the fact that eight Russian armies were at the borders of Ukraine for many months under the pretext of their exercises. Therefore, Ukraine did not prepare defense lines and minefields. But Putin chose the wrong tactic, trying to intimidate the Ukrainians with the scale of the invasion of his armored forces at a time when, due to the wrong season and weather, she could only move along the well-maintained roads of Ukraine. Therefore, they became a good target for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, when these armored columns several tens of kilometers long got stuck in traffic jams artificially created by the Armed Forces of Ukraine and shot them from the side as if in a shooting gallery. Subsequently, this was the reason for the rapid withdrawal of this heavy military equipment from the central and northern regions of Ukraine in order not to completely lose it there.

Now the situation has changed radically, and not in favor of Russia. Russia has already lost a significant part of its professional army and military equipment on the fields of Ukraine. So, according to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Russia has lost about 260 thousand of its soldiers and officers, 4375 tanks, 8511 armored vehicles, 315 aircraft, 316 helicopters, 5333 artillery systems, 723 MLRS, 494 air defense systems, 7773 various automotive military equipment and tanks, 4344 UAVs, 801 special equipment. The Russian army is now forced to reactivate its military equipment since the Second World War. Of course, this technique is also still capable of shooting, and there will still be stubborn bloody battles. But Russia is unlikely to be able to count on successful large-scale operations with the capture of significant Ukrainian territories.

On the other hand, Ukraine, although slowly, is being supplied by other countries with the latest weapons. On the way, by the end of the year, already the first fifty F-16 fighters. If Ukraine has been quite successful in this year and a half with 120 obsolete Soviet aircraft, then with the F-16 and long-range missiles, the Russians will be even more disappointed by the current war of aggression in Ukraine.

As expected, not a single argument against, not a single thought, but a primitive infantile attempt to "offend"  ;D ;D ;D

Fool, I already explained to you - I served from March 2022 to December 2022 in the Territorial Defense, demobilized after being wounded :) So I fulfilled my part of the duty of a citizen - I defended my country and my people, and fulfilled the duty of a civilized person - destroyed the new Nazism. And now I continue to provide maximum assistance to the guys at the front :)

Where are you and how? Therefore, you do not save the "Russian-speaking population", do not fight "with NATO"? The answer is expected to be infantile-idiotic, I really look forward to the answer  ;D

But I will leave the problems of psychiatry, and return to the topic. So the news about the "successes of great Russia." Although using the phrase "success" and "Russia" is also from the field of psychiatry, so I put it in quotation marks :)

And let's start with real clinical psychiatry :)
- Stalin became the third most popular political leader of the past among Russians. Can you imagine what people have in their brains if they glorify a SADIST who destroyed the citizens of the USSR more than Nazi Germany?

The news is most likely paired:
- Russia is in a demographic hole.
but they are trying to fix the situation
- In Russia, the number of sexual crimes committed by military personnel has sharply increased

And news from the "friends of Russia":
- Hungary supported Zelensky's peace plan!
- Abkhazia rejected Medvedev's idea of becoming part of Russia - they finally understood what the "Russian world" is, and breaks out of its bloody embrace.

If the international economic sanctions imposed on Russia because of its military attack on Ukraine seem absurd to you, because they do not give the desired effect, offer your options on how to get Russia to stop killing Ukrainians and return to compliance with international norms and rules of conduct. International institutions such as the UN are currently incapacitated. The UN, which is called upon to respond quickly to such acts of aggression, cannot even condemn Russia's actions, let alone expel it from the Security Council, if only because the Russian Federation is illegally in the UN, since no one is in this organization did not accept.

I still feel like this is not something sustainable. Its not possible to keep imploding yourself, even USA or China cannot compete with world economies with this method. You will always need to import things that do not exist in your country or things you can perfectly produce. You can keep on going with imperfect production but in long run other economies will benefit through trade and beat you. I think Russia needs imports, in long run, sure.

The rules and regulations are ours to establish. We can modify them if things need to be fixed. Suppose the US and EU do not use sanctions to restrain Russia's rise. Russia will quickly level Ukraine. I don't know what this campaign means. But Russia is destroying Ukraine and its innocent people. It is affecting the global economy. Putin also announced the withdrawal of Russia from the New START Treaty. What do you think if Russia used nuclear weapons?
Russia and Ukraine should sit at the negotiating table to make things better.

Russia's war is artificial because when the war started the West thought they had won and Russia would not be able to take any major steps forward because of their various They were overjoyed that Russia wouldn't catch up with them etc. but they didn't know that they shot themselves in the foot because of the economic condition of Russia since the start of the war Various countries have imposed restrictions on them, as a result of which their production has not stopped and the annual growth rate of production etc. has increased much more. Their economic condition is better than before Currently, their economic status is above about 64% which was lower earlier
After the start of the war in Russia, the European countries that had oil markets were not buying oil due to the embargo on the state, which they thought would make them unable to sell oil to Russia.But Russia's oil sales have increased since their sanctions because China and India, Russia's biggest oil buyers, are now buying several times more oil than they used to As a result of the purchase, Russia's economy is getting stronger
Economists who claim that Russia's exports have decreased as a result of the war, more than half of them are economists in the Western world, I do not think are correct because Russia's current economic situation is on It is a special day for Russia because of the good war, it has deepened its relations with many countries that were not possible before, especially with the region.European countries tried and failed to shut down the pipelines with which Russia used to export oil to various countries.Many countries, including Germany, Poland, could not stop pipelines such as Nord Steam One, Nord Steam Two, etc.Russia's economic situation is not so weak that a few states can bring them down with sanctions, they will never stand up and continue to infuriate Russia and escalate the war is helping and Russia is attacking harder and showing its power which sees the western world in misery, and they will be left wondering what to do if not their economic Such doctrines are expressed.Any war helps change a country either for better or for worse In the case of Russia, there is a bright side We may see more sanctions ahead, but I don't see that as an end to the war because the Russian president said yesterday that the West is unethically putting forward various proposals that It is possible for Russia to accept
Finally I can say that the Russian economy will not suffer from the loss of exports because the disaster will not only happen to Russia but also to the Western world and the damage will be long-term The underdeveloped and developing countries will suffer the most, so it is most important to stop the war and if Russia's exports return to normal with all countries, the wheels of the world economy will continue to spin beautifully It is possible to recover from the disaster that has been caused by Covid-19.

First of all I apologize for intruding on your conversation, secondly - unfortunately your idea doesn't make sense.
I'll even explain.
This war has no logical explanation. No, there are a lot of monthly changing "official reasons" from the talking heads in the Kremlin. But we all realize that these are attempts to justify their crimes and manipulate their masses of population.
This war has one idea and one goal. The idea is Putin's manic fear of Ukraine as an example of what to do with an idiot president. This is what I mean about 2013-2014 when the people of Ukraine legally deposed the criminal president Yanukovych who was building the same power scheme in Ukraine as had already been built in Russia. And Putin's goal is the same - to DESTROY Ukraine so that the Kremlin slaves will always forget about it.
Plus he has played the game and decided that he is GOD on earth and can do whatever he wants and nothing will happen to him for it. You may remember Moldova, Azerbaijan, Ichkeria, Georgia. Until then, the whole world sat by and watched in silence...
And most importantly, if you look at the treaties and commitments that Russia has signed from 2000 to today - most of them, Russia just... FORGOT and violated them. I will just remind you of RUSSIA's obligations under the Budapest Memorandum, as well as the many interstate treaties between Ukraine and Russia "on friendship and good-neighborliness" and "on respect, acceptance of borders and independence" - which Russia also forgot and ignored in 2014.
Who to AGREE with? With a potential liar ? And one whose word is worthless ?

I'm happy to say that I read everything, but it was challenging to read due to the way you worded it. Your examination of Russia's economic stability following Western sanctions lacks the acuity needed for an informed discussion on global economics

It is oversimplified to claim that Russia's economy is stronger just because China and India have increased their oil purchases from the country. Your assertion that Russia's economic position is better than it was is also untrue; macroeconomic statistics point in a different direction. Turning to Asian markets alone won't be enough to counteract the long-term economic effects of being shut off from Western banking institutions

The ramifications of geopolitical movements are incredibly unexpected and don't always follow the whims of state leaders or even conventional economic theories, as someone who has a significant investment in decentralized systems like Bitcoin, I can assure you.

Now the UN cannot even condemn Russia’s aggressive and piracy actions towards Ukraine, since Russia is a permanent member of the Security Council of this international organization and blocks all decisions it does not like. This is absolutely wrong and needs to be corrected, but it is impossible to correct it since Russia is against any UN decisions directed against it. This is a complete collapse of the UN as a permanent body and does not fulfill its functions.

If Russia uses nuclear weapons, it will not change anything, but the situation will sharply worsen for everyone, including Russia. Countries such as the USA, China, and India have long warned Russia not to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Therefore, if Putin decides to do this, Russia will definitely find himself in complete diplomatic and economic isolation. And the consequences of a nuclear explosion will be very negative both for Russia itself and for Europe, which are difficult to calculate in advance. But this will not change anything for Ukraine; it will still defend itself, but it will be more difficult for Russia to attack it.

The Ukrainian government has already stated that Ukraine will not negotiate with the current Putin regime, since Putin does not comply with any agreements. In addition, Putin perceives any negotiations as a manifestation of the weakness of the other side and all his negotiations boil down to the demand for the actual capitulation of Ukraine and the presentation of territorial claims to it, which is unacceptable for Ukraine.

In order to understand what the UN is, and how corrupt it is, and how it is a corrupt organization that does not fulfill its goals at all, a little information is in order:
BILD claims to have gained access to a secret letter from UN Secretary-General Guterres to Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov.

In it, Guterres offers Russia:
- Bypass sanctions imposed on the Russian agricultural bank;
- Insurance of ships against Ukrainian attacks;
- Assistance in unblocking frozen fertilizer assets;
- Permission to enter European ports with its products.

Reference to the source: https://m.bild.de/bild-plus/politik/ausland/politik-ausland/guterres-und-lawrow-schmieden-finsteren-plan-un-komplott-soll-aggressor-russland-85328612.bildMobile.html

It can be considered that the confrontation this time was between equal forces, such that neither party could completely weaken the other. The sanctions failed to dissuade Russia from war despite their significant negative impact on the Russian economy, given that Europe is the most useful market for Russia. But the Western powers did not take into account Russia's vital role in the region and the world. With the expansion of Russian alliances around the world, Europe will isolate itself if it continues its policy of sanctions.
Today, Russia has ten important partners within the BRICS alliance alone, and they are the largest economies distributed across the three largest continents: Asia, Africa, and South America. This will further tighten the pressure on European countries.

I have to say you're wrong.
Russia has lost any value it may have had. At the moment it is just a raw material appendage of China and India, which using the situation "screwed" Russia, buying oil from it for fancy money, refining it and selling it to the EU for Euros and dollars.

No one in BRICS takes Russia seriously as a world leader, as they understand its toxicity. There are a couple of countries that are "friends" for the money Russia gives them.... But friendship will end as soon as the flow of "gifts" dries up.  Russia is not creating any alliances, at the moment it is trying to destabilize other regions in its usual manner, this is a classic terrorist tactic.

In BRICS and "global south" now the key player is INDIA, and no one mentions Russia as even slightly significant participant.

The only thing russia is valuable for is lake Baikal. it is the largest storehouse of drinking water in the world. But it's starting to take over. China, which will break Russia's back if it doesn't give this resource to China. Moreover, Russia itself has given China an excuse to talk about "historical territories of China", which for the time being, temporarily belong to Russia :)

Sorry for going OT but I wonder what aircraft you consider "obsolete", specially when you compare it with F-16 which you refer to as "latest weapons"!!!
The fighter jets that Ukraine has/had were MiG-29 (introduced on 1983), Su-24 (1974), Su-25 (1981), Su-27 (1984). None of these are considered obsolete specially when compared with F-16 (introduced 1978)! which is older than 90% of what Ukraine had before!

Here the rule “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” can be used, since China, India, and any other country that buys Russian products at low prices will sell them to the countries that need them (Europe) at very high prices. For Russia to sell these products at very low prices could serve its goals for the following reasons:
- It has surplus production that it must dispose of at any price, in addition to the fact that China and India are distant regions, and the cost of transportation is what reduces the price the most.
- It sells these products to its allies who are in an undeclared confrontation with Europe and NATO.
- In the best cases, Europe will be forced to buy Russian products through an intermediary at high prices, which is better than getting nothing.

Russia in theory could ask Cuba how to survive for decades isolated from the world and manage anyway.   The scenario where Russia carries on with its economy regardless is more then viable its just we dont think they will do as well in isolation, of course trade will carry on but in some impaired way.  Even in oil and gas which is their strong point and in demand, Russia lacks proper development & efficiency that would come from involvement internationally to improve all their assets; same is true of many countries like Iraq has failed to invest in its oil fields for decades and they are worse off from that failure in efficiency.    Some commodity projects can take an entire decade to start and establish, this war is destroying their ability to start what is already overdue in addition to other failures the list must be enough to fill a book by now.
  I do think Russia loses far more then it could have gained from any success in this war, I'd say the same of almost any country its better to do plain business then kill and hope for profit from destruction.  Only a singularly small minded person would think otherwise, for an entire nation a giant country growing in size like Russia its definitely true they are far worse off as a people with war , death and waste.  There was no need to conqueror any country when they are already seeing large land gains from the permafrost melting, thats a giant change and they already lack the people, resources, creative companies to make the most of that.

Even if the American F-16s were produced in the seventies of the last century, and the Soviet ones, now used in the war by both Russia and Ukraine, were produced in the eighties, in many respects the “outdated” F-16 is superior to modern analogues of Russian, and even more so Ukrainian models .
Unlike the F-16, the MiG-29, for example, has not been developed since the early 1980s and is considered obsolete, while the F-16 has gone through several modifications. Today it has about 15 variants, the last of which are still produced for export.

If we compare endurance, that is, the maximum time after which the aircraft must be written off, since it becomes unsafe to fly, then the first modifications of the F-16 had a service life of 8 thousand hours. This means that with a normal number of flights, their operation is designed for 40 years. Today, the United States is considering the possibility of extending the service life to another 10 or 12 thousand hours, that is, the aircraft will be able to be used until 2048.
The situation with the MiG-29 is completely different. Initially, they had a resource of only 2.5 thousand hours, and later ones - up to 4 thousand. In other words, half as much, that is, the operation of Soviet fighters is designed for a maximum of 20 years.

The MiG-29 has good speed and slightly higher maneuverability, which gives it the ability to turn 180 degrees two seconds earlier, so the MiG-29 is good in close combat, but in fighter aircraft the advantage goes to the one who detects the enemy first.
The best modifications of Soviet (Russian) fighters with their onboard radar can “see” air targets at a range of more than 200 km and carry out air-to-air missile attacks at a range of 75 km. At the same time, the F-16 can engage air targets at a range of about 300 km and carry out attacks at a range twice that of the enemy, without entering the range of enemy fighters and ground-based air defense systems.

But what makes the F-16 even better is its avionics. Modern versions are equipped with the AN/APG-83 radar, which is simultaneously capable of tracking up to 35 targets and allows firing at 8 of them. In this case, targets can be both air and ground; there is no need to switch modes. At the same time, radars even on modernized MiG-29s (in Russian service) track up to 10 targets and allow attacking only one. And they are completely incapable of identifying ground targets. Moreover, the pilot must highlight the air target with radar before it is destroyed.

Not enough reason for us to sit back and think that Russia will yield and give up. For all we know they have allies that would help them fund the war of attrition that they have subjected themselves against Ukraine with. Not to mention the fact that they probably have enough funding to keep at this war 10 times over, so this "implosion" so to speak may affect the economy of Russia, it may even kill the morale of its citizens, but until Putin signs that treaty of peace they won't be stopping this war any time soon.

I'm just hoping no more countries are to intervene against this war besides the conventional support that they give out, once more countries actively join this war this will mean hell for a lot of us and may even escalate to a continental/global war.

A bit of positive news from Russia Smiley

- VTB head predicts the dollar at 250 rubles in the transition to the Chinese model of the currency market
Russia's transition to the Chinese model of the currency market with the introduction of two ruble exchange rates will lead to a sharp decline in the domestic currency, said VTB CEO Andrei Kostin. "If we introduce two ruble exchange rates, we will have one at 150 and the other at 250, that's for sure," Kostin said at the International Banking Forum in Sochi.

- "Gazprom" reported a record in the history of gas production collapse. At the end of the first half of the year, Gazprom's production amounted to 179.45 billion cubic meters, the company said in its quarterly report. Compared to the same period of 2022, the volumes fell by 25%, and if compared to the pre-war period - by almost a third: in January-June 2021, Gazprom produced 260.8 billion cubic meters. Never in the three decades of its history has the world's largest gas company reduced production so rapidly.

- Budget expenditures for Putin's maintenance will be increased by 20%. The maintenance of Russian President Vladimir Putin in the next three years will cost Russian taxpayers 74.7 billion rubles. This amount for the "functioning" of the head of state the government has laid down in the draft federal budget for 2024-26, which was submitted to the State Duma on Friday.

- Russia faces a shortage of black bread. Rye of the first, second and third classes will make up about 97% of the entire harvest, but 59% of this volume will be of the third class, which is a poor quality indicator

- Russian farmers are under the threat of mass bankruptcies after the withdrawal of foreign grain traders. Monopolization of the grain market following the departure of foreign players who left Russia after the outbreak of war in Ukraine has brought thousands of farms to the brink of bankruptcy.
Grain traders are buying grain below the cost of production and this is destroying the economy of farms, a member of the State Duma committee for agrarian issues, Sergey Lisovsky, has said.

Oh, you're still here? You need to defend your motherland in Donbas! I've heard they need more fighters ASAP! Stop trolling from the safety of your home, join your comrades on the front lines. And remember good news for you: now they're accepting retarded people as well!  ;D 

Anyways, getting back to the topic: your laughable claims are not supported by anything. No sources, no proof, nothing. Somehow, I'm not surprised. Stop spreading BS and lies. Please.

The problem is actually much deeper than that ... If you think the problem is Putin, I'm sorry, but you're wrong. The problem is the Nazi regime of Russia and the support of Nazism and terror against the developed world, and civilization in general, by the majority of the Russian population. As a resident of Ukraine - believe me, it is not Putin who kills civilians in Ukraine and destroys cities, it is just ordinary, typical, residents of Russia, who simply do not hate the whole world.

Therefore, there is no need for any signatures, Russia, as the center of today's world destabilization, new Nazism, and terrorism, including economic terrorism, must cease to exist in its current state.  The ideal solution is the division of russia into several independent republics, with temporary external rule, with total demilitarization, and with obligations to pay reparations for many decades, to ALL those who suffered from the soviet and russian power.

There is a huge assumption in your post. You are assuming that the F-16s that Ukraine is supposed to receive are the improved versions. However, from what I can tell this assumption may not be correct since what is being sent is the old versions with little to no improvement.

For example two of the batches that Ukraine may receive in the future are coming from Denmark and Netherlands. Both of these countries have purchased majority of their F-16s in the early 80's and some small numbers in the 90's; meaning most of what they are going to send to Ukraine is the old versions (A and B variants).

As for the lifespan, these old aircrafts have only gone through certain small upgrades for example one of them is what Lockheed-Martin refers to as the "MLU package" which Denmark paid for and only performs routine tests for fatigue, cracks, etc. and fixes some to increase the lifespan. It is like taking your 50 year old car to the shop to increase its lifespan for another decade!

As for the missiles, the only missiles that these countries have purchased (like the ones that RDAF owns) are medium range like the air-to-air missiles such as AM-110 that has a range of 30 miles (48 km), the air-to-ground missiles such as AGM-65 that has a range of 0.6-10 miles (1-16 km).

I couldn't find any reliable information about the radars installed in these aircrafts so I can't comment on that. But considering the rest, specifically the short range of their missiles, I wouldn't count on it to be anything "modern".

1. you can easily check any fact I have given you. Which is to be expected, I have never been able to do with your fantasies :)

2.Judging by the people I saw in the rf army in 2022, in the so-called "second army of the world" - they recruit ONLY mentally distant and moral degenerates there:) I don't understand why you don't defend the "brown Russian world" yet :)
But... you will soon have a great chance "Russia: Vladimir Putin signed a decree on conscription of 130 thousand people into the Russian army".

OMG, it's unbelievable but everything this guy is posting is a lie. Everything. By googling the latest headline you provided (no source mentioned as always) it's easy to find this:


Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-putin-signs-decree-autumn-military-conscription-2023-09-29/

So it turns out it's a routine conscription and the conscripts are not going to Ukraine. Who could have thought? It's a lie again.  ;D

Meanwhile, the support for Ukraine is fading day by day:

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/09/30/PJdLw.jpeg

As you can see, if people were in charge not the governments, Ukraine wouldn't receive any support at all most probably. In particular, only 24% support the purchase and supply of military equipment to Ukraine!

All is good, Slava Ukraini!  ;D

 ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Of course, in a country that is a pathetic copy of Nazi Germany, where ""the special operation is going according to plan", "in 3 weeks "Ukraine will fall" because "the second army of the world, the great Russia, and the whole world will freeze without our gas", there have already been 2 mobilizations, the operation lasts for almost 2 years, and at the front, for lack of "cannon fodder" they take criminals, pedophiles, rapists, murderers, thieves, and with hysterics try to throw the advancing AFU, the fall draft - not for the war in Ukraine !  ;D ;D ;D

It is very funny to watch you trying, in vain, to deceive yourself :))))) And it is very stupid to twist information - I wrote that they will recruit expendables and cannon fodder for the draft, you squeal - "you are lying", give proof of my information, but then make up a pathetic, stupid story that it is not for war  ;D
Even Sakhalin units in Russia have already been transferred from their permanent home and are fighting in Ukraine, the Far East is provided with combat-ready units and reserves at 7-10% of the planned.....

But okay, once again you've been laughed at, let's get back to the successes of the terrorist country :) And you are going to check again, and you are going to come up with pathetic stupid excuses again :)

Remember - if Putin says "there will be no mobilization" - it means there will be mobilization, if the General Staff says "no one will go to SVO" - it means they will all die there. Russia is a country built on total lies and deception of the population ! This is also a fact :)


- The government will "put under the knife" all key health care projects to pay for the war.  The Russian government is sequestering spending on all key medical development projects to pay for the growing "bill" for the war with Ukraine, which by the end of the first two years will exceed 10 trillion rubles, and by the end of the third year may exceed 20 trillion rubles.

In 2024, the federal treasury spending on the national project "Health Care" will be cut by 10% - from 321.3 to 289.9 billion rubles, according to the explanatory note to the budget law, which was submitted to the State Duma on Friday.

- "Everything for the front": Russia will spend in 24y on defense almost a third of the Russian budget.
and this news complements it perfectly:
- Russian authorities have classified 30% of the budget expenditures for the 24th year

Total - about 60% of the budget will be burned in the already lost war ...

- While the authorities are reporting about overcoming the crisis and economic growth, Rosstat recorded that industry has slipped into recession. August was the third month of production decline, if seasonal and calendar factors are eliminated: in June-August it amounted to 0.2%, 0.1% and 0.3%, the statistical service cites data. Experts, depending on their models, also interpret Rosstat's data in such a way that industrial growth has run out of steam and has even been replaced by a decline, if not a recession.


For the rest of you, I recommend reading the article about "Russia's fairy-tale economy and budget" https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2023/09/28/rezhim-pokazivaet-byudzhetnie-fokusi-no-finansi-raspolzayutsya-pod-gruzom-voennih-trat-a108318.

Denmark is giving Ukraine all its F-16 fighters: they should be provided this summer. This was stated by the Ambassador of Denmark to Ukraine Ole Egberg Mikkelsen. “There will definitely be planes for Ukraine. This is our entire F-16 fleet, which is now being retired because we are getting a new generation of aircraft - the F-35. No need to worry. The F-16s will be delivered as we promised,” said Ole Egberg Mikkelsen.
https://uatv.ua/daniya-otdast-ukraine-ves-svoj-park-istrebitelej-f-16-podrobnosti/

Since Denmark is going to transfer its entire fleet of F-16s to Ukraine, it is hardly worth considering that they are all old models. Denmark began receiving F-16s in January 1980. The country first ordered 58 aircraft, and in the mid-80s - 12 more, which came to replace the most worn-out aircraft of the first batch. This order was completed approximately in the late 80s of the 20th century.

  The media claim that all F-16 aircraft of the Netherlands and Denmark were modernized from the mid-90s to the mid-2000s under the Mid-Life Update (MLU) program. The fighters were also regularly maintained to extend their service life. In the F-16 aircraft modernized under the MLU program, the radar station was replaced with AN/APG-66(V)2 with a target detection range of up to 110 km. To use high-precision weapons on the fighter, the ability to mount Lantrin or Litening type containers was added. The on-board computer, on-board display equipment, electronic warfare, navigation and communications systems, and low-altitude flights were updated.
https://tsn.ua/ru/svit/kakuyu-versiyu-f-16-peredadut-ukraine-daniya-i-niderlandy-ocenki-ekspertov-2394970.html

The F-16 MLU version is a full-fledged multi-role fighter that can conduct dogfights at ranges of more than 100 km and use a wide range of precision weapons. Soon we will have the opportunity to evaluate these aircraft in combat with Russian fighters, which has never happened before, especially on such a scale.

Interesting how this shows what I said years ago about the American scam to artificially keep US economy alive while ruining Europe's (force them to "donate" their expired weapons to Ukraine and "buy" new ones from US).

In any case, I'm afraid this is too little and too late.

Yes, that would be interesting since it depends on a lot of factors such as
- the pilots of those F16's, how much training did they have and at what quality,
- what kind of air-to-air missiles these F16's are going to come with and how many,
- how can they play into the current air dominance Russia has,
- and so on...

My guess is all these fighter jets would do is to only knock Russia down from having air dominance to having air superiority. And that's best case scenario.

My guess most of them will be destroyed on the ground before even being able to become airborne. Russian intelligence has improved A LOT since the beginning of the war and they are now being able to locate and destroy targets like HIMARS, Patriot systems, foreign mercenary camps etc even far away from the frontline.

Airports/airfields are such an easy target for Russian missiles. You can't hide an airfield or build a new one secretly.

In any case, for most Ukrainian pilots the first flight is also going to be the last... 

Yeah, that's another factor to consider.

On one hand we have Russia that still has a large number of air-defenses which include high quality and long range radars and anti-air missiles alongside a large air-force with modern aircrafts with pilots flying them who have been trained for a long time under favorable conditions.

On the other hand we have Ukraine that has lost most of its air-defense and basically has a handful of low tier, low quality air defenses with lower range radars and anti-air missiles, alongside a small number of old/used aircrafts flown by pilots who have had little training under bad conditions.

For example @Argoo talks about "dogfight". That is easier said than done. Even the so called expert American pilots with years of training and most sophisticated systems at their disposal are not capable of performing decent dogfights. Not much is expected of a Ukrainian pilot with little training abroad (language barrier) on a Western system they are not even familiar with.

Another serious issue that may be overlooked is overhaul. Ukrainians may be able to fix a Russian/Soviet made aircraft since they've had them before (eg. Sukhoi and MiG) but they neither have the infrastructure nor the know-how to fix a Western aircraft such as F-16. Any small issue in an F-16 means they'll have to ship it back abroad (possibly to US itself) for Lockheed Martin to fix that issue.
That's not a sustainable air-force that can make any change.

Lest we forget the Abrams tanks...
This is why I said too little and too late...

You are absolutely right! Not only language barrier and inability to reach decent levels of flying in shorter periods of time/training but mainly just the lack of pilots. Most of the Ukrainian pilots were Russian-trained and flew Russian-built planes. Unfortunately, most of them are already dead. The remaining pilots have very poor level of English as you precisely pointed out. As a result, some time ago it was announced by a Ukrainian news outlet that there are only 6 pilots who could proceed with training abroad! 6 pilots/planes certainly doesn't sound like a gamechanger!  

This is if we assume that Ukraine will hide the received F-16 aircraft from Russian missiles. Ukraine and their allies are aware of such risks and therefore are preparing to solve such a problem in a comprehensive manner. This means that before the F-16 is delivered to Ukraine, there will be a significant improvement in its air defense in order to cover airfields from Russian missiles. In the near future, 6 - 7 Petriot systems may arrive in Ukraine, which can solve this problem.

But Russia is also not doing well with air defense. This is evidenced by recent events at the occupied Cape Tarkhankut, where Russia immediately lost four air defense systems - three S-300 and one S-400. Previously, they were attacked by ATACMS missiles, which this vaunted air defense simply could not shoot down.

https://www.mv.org.ua/amp/news/276591-poterjany_sistemy_pvo_pogibli_11_voennyh_vsu_pricelno_udarili_po_mysu_tarhankut_v_krymu.html

Russian weapons turned out to be very vulnerable against high-precision Western ones, and countries around the world are therefore abandoning Russian weapons and buying Western ones. Even countries of the former USSR. Why do you think Kazakhstan sold its 117 combat aircraft at auction at a price of less than 20 thousand dollars per aircraft and what aircraft will they buy there in this case?

https://www.unian.net/weapons/voyna-v-ukraine-ssha-priobreli-81-boevoy-samolet-sovetskih-vremen-u-soyuznika-rf-12619707.html

Once again your comparison is weird like the F-16 case from last year.

A handful of the weakest American air defense batteries (if it is the whole system and not just its missiles) is nowhere near enough to solve Ukraine's air defense problem. We are talking about a country that is about 600,000 km² after all.
Even 10 full batteries are not even enough to protect a single airbase!

Also you are contradicting yourself here.
Regardless of the reliability of the story about Cape Tarkhankut, you concluded that using a lot of very expensive short range tactical ballistic missiles (each worth at least $1.47 million) to destroy an unknown number of S-300/400 systems means "Russian air defense is very vulnerable".
At the same time you claimed that the handful of Patriots solved Ukraine's air defense considering how we know during the Saudi-US invasion of Yemen, the Yemeni forces regularly destroyed Patriot batteries using the ultra cheap Shahed-136 drones each worth $10k-$20k!

Ukraine has at least six Patriot systems at its disposal. Two of them were previously supplied by the USA, two by the Netherlands and already two by Germany. And they repel Russian missile attacks quite well. No matter how many times Russia launched its missiles at Kyiv, even the latest “daggers” and “zircons,” it was still unable to break through the air defense. Ukraine has requested seven more such systems, including for the protection of Kharkov and Odessa, which Russia has recently been strenuously trying to destroy. The military leadership of Ukraine believes that this is the minimum that will help cover the sky over Ukraine.

The basis of Russian air defense is the S-300 and S-400 air defense systems. According to their stated characteristics, they should shoot down all Western-style missiles.
The contract value of one division of four vehicles of the S-400 anti-aircraft missile system is about 625 million dollars (based on a deal between Turkey and Russia: 2.5 billion dollars for 4 divisions), or 59 billion rubles. The S-300 air defense system, accordingly, costs a little less.
If Ukraine spent a dozen missiles at Cape Tarkhankut, then their cost will be no more than 20 million dollars and this is much less than the cost of the destroyed four S-300 and S-400 vehicles, the approximate cost of which is hundreds of millions of dollars.

At the same time, the missile used in Patriot, the MIM-104, costs about $3 million, and the cost of the ATACMS missile ranges from one to two million dollars. For comparison: the price of the S-300 anti-aircraft guided missile is at least $2 million. The price of the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal missile is $10 million. And Russia spends them mainly on shelling populated areas of Ukraine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7nm7QPcJ_w
This former United States Marine Corps intelligence officer has some ugly truths that you may not like to hear...