Isn't Russia going to be doing some big military exercise in Belarus this summer? That should be a fun time.
Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Thread starter Wednesday at Stoke
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Russia has to agree to the conditions of the ceasefire, no? Otherwise they just continue fighting. And why wouldn’t they?
Since the US has basically pulled out of helping Ukraine and has piled all the political pressure (publicly too) on them, what is the incentive for Putin to climb down for his maximalist views? He will demand a disarmed Ukraine, no international troops, elections he can ideally influence and install a puppet government, as all the oblasts he claims as Russia (including territories not conquered yet) to be ceded to Russia. What then?
I don't think we're anywhere near the finale of Trump's plan myself, but sanctions relief for Russia proceeded by some sort of 'business' deal will be among the next steps. He has to manage Russian aid against the situation/protests at home though, wait until he's happy he's got full control of law enforcement before escalating too much. He's only just replaced the FBI leadership, it takes time to make sure you've got loyalists in all positions of power in the hierarchy across all agencies and departments. We are still very much in the early stages, he's still laying the ground work, though moving fast to give him (them) credit.
We can safely ignore all the noise around a Trumpian peace deal too, its tiresome, it was never going to happen and never will. Has their even been any sort of proposal put forward for one yet? I get lost under all the noise surrounding that post-war 'reconstruction/development/mining/mineral deal/heads of terms' thing that has nothing to do with weapons, assurances or peace.
Zelensky has to play the game of course because if there is a chance of one more weapons shipment or whatever, then it may save lives. We don't have to though.
They have to agree to the terms of the ceasefire, which for them means no land concessions and no Ukraine in NATO. They don't have any leverage to decide whether Ukraine makes a deal with individual countries to place peacekeepers on Ukrainian land to meet their security guarantee needs.
This is just fecking sad to see. Fair play though, costs nothing.
https://bsky.app/profile/antongerashchenko.bsky.social/post/3ljnv4wkzec25
https://bsky.app/profile/antongerashchenko.bsky.social/post/3ljnv4wkzec25
Latest on Russian airlines.
https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2025/03/05/inostrannim-samoletam-vrossii-ostalos-letat-odin-god-a157140 - this url tho?!
Each aircraft must undergo regular checks: the so-called C Check every 1.5-2 years and the more in-depth D Check once every 6-12 years. However, these procedures are impossible without the direct participation of manufacturers, who no longer cooperate with Russian companies.
“2025 will legally be the last year of flights for most” aircraft in the fleet of Russian companies, says an aviation security expert who wished to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the topic. According to him, the problem of lack of spare parts will affect even the Superjets, in which all critical components — engines, avionics, electrical equipment, landing gear and fuel systems — are of Western manufacture.
Their project to replace the domestic fleet in a joint venture with China got cancelled a couple months ago btw.
https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2025/03/05/inostrannim-samoletam-vrossii-ostalos-letat-odin-god-a157140 - this url tho?!
Each aircraft must undergo regular checks: the so-called C Check every 1.5-2 years and the more in-depth D Check once every 6-12 years. However, these procedures are impossible without the direct participation of manufacturers, who no longer cooperate with Russian companies.
“2025 will legally be the last year of flights for most” aircraft in the fleet of Russian companies, says an aviation security expert who wished to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the topic. According to him, the problem of lack of spare parts will affect even the Superjets, in which all critical components — engines, avionics, electrical equipment, landing gear and fuel systems — are of Western manufacture.
Their project to replace the domestic fleet in a joint venture with China got cancelled a couple months ago btw.
Latest on the mythical, never going to happen, "Russian economy is totally and utterly f*cked" stories.
Here's their published result for 2024.
That 3.4 trillion rouble deficit is what almost wiped out the national wealth fund.
Here's the result for January...
Most expenses are incurred at the end of the year as well as that's when most things are paid up. This is likely a carry over from December, its already blown their total 2025 estimate of a 1.1 trillion deficit out of the water though before they've even started, which was always a fantasy. This is best case also seeing as its the numbers they are showing us. There are updates since the January result that makes things look even worse, but I don't understanded if its including everything so wait and see.
Oh and the oil price is crashing.
Thank the lord they have such strong PPP, or they would be in trouble.
Here's their published result for 2024.
Here's the result for January...
Most expenses are incurred at the end of the year as well as that's when most things are paid up. This is likely a carry over from December, its already blown their total 2025 estimate of a 1.1 trillion deficit out of the water though before they've even started, which was always a fantasy. This is best case also seeing as its the numbers they are showing us. There are updates since the January result that makes things look even worse, but I don't understanded if its including everything so wait and see.
Oh and the oil price is crashing.
Thank the lord they have such strong PPP, or they would be in trouble.
Many people, mainly from the countries that never faced extreme corruption, severely underestimate how much corruption and nepotism can destroy a country. Half of the economy of Russia is effectively stolenLatest on the mythical, never going to happen, "Russian economy is totally and utterly f*cked" stories.
Here's their published result for 2024.
That 3.4 trillion rouble deficit is what almost wiped out the national wealth fund.
Here's the result for January...
Most expenses are incurred at the end of the year as well as that's when most things are paid up. This is likely a carry over from December, its already blown their total 2025 estimate of a 1.1 trillion deficit out of the water though before they've even started, which was always a fantasy. This is best case also seeing as its the numbers they are showing us. There are updates since the January result that makes things look even worse, but I don't understanded if its including everything so wait and see.
Oh and the oil price is crashing.
Thank the lord they have such strong PPP, or they would be in trouble.
Macron appears to be pushing for French peacekeepers in Ukraine.
Trump has dragged Ukraine to the table on pain of losing the war and what seems like the USA forcing the capitulation of a democratic state to an authoritarian dictator.
If this is the MAGA plan then it will happen and the fallout will be the end of US leadership of the western democracies. It might take some time to coalesce but it will happen.
The cope thinking here (and I don't give it much of a chance of being right) is that Putin is now negotiating with Trump who has proved he can deliver Ukraine and so will never be a better position to end the war. Whatever demands Trump makes on Putin will have to be met because he can turn the war back on if not.
I'm not convinced this is anything but a sell out though.
Europe doesn't pay enough, spending jumps. No US troops, France and UK say they will put troops in, Cost of supplying Ukraine, Europe will pay.
It doesn't seem to me the reasons given are true any more than Fentanyl is the reason for tariffs on the Canadian border.
Macron, to his credit, saw was coming a long time ago. He has been talking about a strong Europe for years. A year ago he even floated the idea of sending troops to Ukraine (or at least didn’t rule it out).
You can say a lot about Ganesh, very little of it good, but at the very least he's not a finance bro. He just takes money from them.
Other than Russians, Europeans most familiar with corruption would be Ukrainians. The two countries score pretty similarly on most indexes.
If you're counting on corruption to save Ukraine, then it's a close race to the bottom.
I wonder if there is any leverage for the EU in those frozen Russian assets. To me, that sounds like a lot of money. Can there be a point where the EU would say 'either you work with us and you get the money back; or you don't and we spend it on our military'? And if the EU goes there, would Russia care?
The EU is already starting to use interest accrued from the Russian money to fund Ukraine. They should probably continue using the interest until that runs out, then use the actual money itself.
Poland in the 90s started from an extremely similar position too. When there is anything resembling a consensus and a political will, there can be an insane amount of stuff done in fight with corruption even within a decade.
And they are planning on replacing Zelensky
https://www.politico.eu/article/don...-elections-yulia-tymoshenko-petro-poroshenko/
https://www.politico.eu/article/don...-elections-yulia-tymoshenko-petro-poroshenko/
As expected.
Latest on the mythical, never going to happen, "Russian economy is totally and utterly f*cked" stories.
Here's their published result for 2024.
That 3.4 trillion rouble deficit is what almost wiped out the national wealth fund.
Here's the result for January...
Most expenses are incurred at the end of the year as well as that's when most things are paid up. This is likely a carry over from December, its already blown their total 2025 estimate of a 1.1 trillion deficit out of the water though before they've even started, which was always a fantasy. This is best case also seeing as its the numbers they are showing us. There are updates since the January result that makes things look even worse, but I don't understanded if its including everything so wait and see.
Oh and the oil price is crashing.
Thank the lord they have such strong PPP, or they would be in trouble.
Thank you for the data
Isn't 1.7% deficit relatively low? isn't in the Maastricht agreements that the EU countries can't surpass 3%?
Or is there something that I am not seeing?
At the same time, officially (but who knows how reliable they are), russia has one of the lowest debt -GDP ratio in the world by far at less than 20%, so surely can go with a relatively low deficit?
If we compare the 2024 deficit of Russia at 1.7% and debt 20% with the EU
We can see that in 2024, only Cyprus, Greece, Ireland and Portugal where lower. Improving the comparisons from 2023, so Russia comparably improved with the EU form 2023 to 2024. and only Estonia and Louxemburg, relatively small countries, comes close to the 20% russia debt, while third lowest doubles it and the biggest economies in the EU have Italy 140, France 110, Spain 106 and Germany 65
I don't think that the deficit and debt is a good argument to assess the collapse of the Russian economy in the short term, because if not, the EU would collapse first
Again, there are indicators that the Russian economy is not healthy and too dependable of oil and gas prices, as you well mentioned. But in the short term, Russia economy will keep going
The simple answer is that Russia cannot raise debt. They don’t have access to international markets because they chose to be a big N Korea. Their situation is not comparable to anyone else.
They knew that would happen which is why they spent a decade building up a savings account for this war, the war just lasted 3 years and not 3 days so now their savings are running dry so ANY deficit is bad, the exponentially growing deficit we will see this year is very bad. If they start defaulting and people stop getting paid….. stack of cards.
The only funds they can raise are domestically, from banks and businesses with money they don’t have as they struggle with their own crippling debts tied to 21% interest rates, lowering profits and higher taxes.
They really need to lower interest rates to protect business and industry but also really need to up interest rates to deal with that other problem, inflation. The word for this is stagflation, they are in it.
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You don't think China would lend them more money?
No, and I’m not sure they ever have? They’ve always traded for their own benefit but don’t remember China ever ever providing aid, which is what a loan would be as Russia is as credit worthy as a dead fish.
I believe Trump might….
Another meeting today.
Let them bring us democracy
I'm very relieved that despite the US having fallen, the EU seems to commit itself to supporting Ukraine. Russia's efforts don't seem sustainable. They burned through the savings of a decade and ammo stockpiles of the Soviet era but once those come to an end, they either have to reduce the intensity of their warfare or collapse. You don't even need to be an economic expert to see it, it already shows in their behaviour. Calling back troops from Syria, working together with North Korea, etc.
The presidential elections in the US really were their last glimmer of hope and unfortunately that glimmer became a light at the end of the tunnel.
Let's call that what it was, the winners of the civil war threw the losers (Russia) out of their country.
I'm not an expert on the topic but I was under the impression that Russia would not have lost in Syria if they wouldn't have committed most of their forces to Ukraine. Didn't they also send lots of Wagner troops from Syria to Ukraine which basically was the beginning of the end there?
Weserübung 2: Electric Boogaloo
That's just needlessly cruel.
With 'Allies' like this who really needs enemies.
I think that's correct. I just assumed that you were talking about more recent developments. Recalling those troops happened very early (and actually they didn't recall much of heavy equipment as they weren't allowed to use the Bosporus with their military ships any more).
I hate believing in conspiracy theories. More of a Occam's Razor man myself. But with every action undertaken by the Trump administration I come to believe more and more in him being somehow compromised by Russia. Be it debts, blackmail, bribes. Some of the stuff he does just seems like if it came straight from Putin's office.
Any moment now he's lifting sanctions on Russia.
I think him being a Russian asset is the most logical answer even going by Ockham‘s razor.
What he doesn’t understand is that Putin won’t have any say in the matter. As long as Ukraine remains democratic, they can choose any bilateral security deal they want with random European countries, all of which would happen outside the scope of NATO.
Good thread and spot on. Stewart’s geopolitics podcast is also very good.
I didn't mean to say that it was a recent development, rather that it recently became clear he needs every soldier in Ukraine and can't afford to have them fight in Syria anymore because if he could then he'd surely have put up more of a fight there. For Ukraine that hss to be a positive sign.
I think it depends on the definition of 'Russian asset'. At this point, I can't think of any compromising material Putin could have that he might use to blackmail Trump. He could just deny anything, tell a conspiracy theory, his base would believe it and that's that. Most likely, he's just being played by him and his intelligence agencies. As in, they spread lies over social media about how US aid to Ukraine is ruining the country, Trump being the opportunist he is builds on that sentiment ("I'll end thwar in no time") and now he has to live up to his words, maybe even believing it himself. Add to that his shortsightedness and here we go.
So taking all this into account….why on earth does Europe, with 12 times the economy of Russia and multiple individual countries with a larger economy than Russia, need American money, weapons or security guarantees with Ukraine at all?
That is a good question, and one that Europe is finding out the hard way should've been addressed after the end of the cold war, instead of waiting until the next emergency when European power is actually needed. Part of the reason I suppose is because European security was always underwritten by NATO. Unfortunately that only works when the US isn't run by a mad man.
Even worse, it took us three years of said next emergency to finally get going. As if the first Trump term wasn't enough of a warning shot.