Russia has a pissant-sized economy about 4% of the size of Western Europe and less than 2% of the economies of the countries supporting Ukraine.

At the moment Russia may be holding the line at a tremendous cost, but its industry and economy are collapsing.

Russia is losing this war.

The Russian government ran a deficit of about $30-something billion last year, where as the US ran a deficit of 1 trillion...
America has interest payments well over a trillion p/a and de-dollarisation continues.

Russia has become the largest economy in Europe whilst Europe has committed economic suicide.
Russia has found other buyers for it's oil and gas, Europe couldn't get the same deal it once had even if it wanted to.
- But it still buys Russian oil from India at a significant premium.
Even America has quietly been buying Russian oil again.

Ukraine isn't winning.
The West has gotten half a million Ukrainians killed (for the sake of Blackrock and Vanguard)
Ukraine has been selling off all it's national assets at pennies on the dollar.

America has not only destroyed Ukraine, it has also destroyed Europe, and not only that, has destroyed itself as well.

Putin standing up to the bully saying "No, don't accept this, we will fight you" This has precipitated other countries to think "maybe the bully isn't that tough after all".

Africa has kicked France out of Africa, Russia and China are best buddies, The US has lost significant influence in the middle east and elsewhere.
And Trump is likely to win.

Putin seems to be winning the war in Ukraine—for now
http://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/11/30/putin-seems-to-be-winning-the-war-in-ukraine-for-now

The media lies to everyone.
They say "The counter-offensive did not achieve the expected results"

They're weasel words.

The fact is the Ukrainian counter-offensive WAS DEFEATED.
They lost, they did not achieve the military objectives.
Everything the West could muster to throw at the Russians amounted to nothing
- except money for the MIC, US jobs.
They got 90,000 Ukrainians killed for no gains at all.
They lost. There's no more military assets for a new counter-offensive.

Ukraine has been defeated.
They are not going to take back any more territory.

Baldrick,

The Russian budget deficit was $36bn even after selling tons of gold and dipping heavily into the wealth fund which is emptying rapidly.

Ukraine's counter-offensive was underwhelming, but they held onto the ground they captured. Russia's winter offensive has been a complete cockup losing 10000s of troops and hundreds of tanks etc for virtually no gain.

The recent loss of 7 Su34s and two spy planes shot down by Ukraine is a major blow as they can't quickly be replaced.

There are riots in the caucuses public services are collapsing, and Russia is about to lose the $300bn stored in Western banks.

Russia is losing this war.

Tata Steel to shut down Port Talbot blast furnaces, putting 3,000 jobs at risk
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/18/tata-steel-to-shut-down-port-talbot-blast-furnaces-3000-jobs-at-risk
'Firm rejects union plan, leaving UK on course to become only major economy unable to make steel from scratch'

Putin threatens Britain's fish and chips:
Russia declares fishing war with UK, banning our trawlers from Barents Sea and its supplies of cod and haddock
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12978367/Putin-threatens-Britains-fish-chips-Russia-declares-fishing-war-UK-banning-trawlers-Barents-Sea-supplies-cod-haddock.html
'A massive amount of cod and haddock sold in fish and chips shops across the country is traditionally sourced from these waters - according to UK Fisheries data, a whopping 566,784 tonnes of cod was scooped in the Barents Sea just last year alone. '

How Russia Won the Sanctions War With the West
http://www.newsweek.com/how-russia-won-sanctions-war-west-opinion-1861645

"It is now abundantly clear that Russia has defeated the Western sanctions regime that was intended to cripple its economy and force its withdrawal from Ukraine. Instead of collapsing, the Russian economy is growing rapidly. Russia's GDP grew by an impressive 5.5 percent in the third quarter of 2023. Final figures for the year are not yet in, but Russian GDP growth for all of 2023 should exceed 3 percent. Ironically, the Russians are doing rather better than those who imposed sanctions on them. In 2023, the U.S. economy grew by 2.4 percent while the German economy shrank, and the EU as a whole grew by less than 1 percent. Instead of withdrawing from Ukraine, Russia has increased the size of its invasion force from 190,000 troops in February 2022 to more than 600,000 today.

Between February 2022 and February 2023, Western countries imposed on Russia the most extensive sanctions regime seen since World War II. In all, several thousand sanctions on Russian individuals, businesses, and government institutions caused only a mild recession in 2022 which the Russians quickly turned around. How did they do it? Very simply. The Russians have a lot of gold, grain, oil, and friends, all of which they used effectively to defeat the sanctions. Any realistic war game could have easily predicted all of this..."