ttbn,

Russia's expenditure on the military has roughly doubled.

Prior to the war, it was estimated that 40% of the military budget in Russia was embezzled hence the cheap Chinese tyres on their vehicles which failed after a few 100km. The rest makes up 1/20th of what the US military budget is.

Russia's R&D on the military was cut thus the complete failures that were the SU57 joke of a "stealth" aircraft and the hopeless T14 Armata tank.

Even then with full mobilization, Russia is losing far more tanks planes artillery systems than it can replace.

Russia is on a clock and is getting weaker every day.

Russia is losing this war.

Russia’s economy once again defies the doomsayers
http://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2024/03/10/russias-economy-once-again-defies-the-doomsayers
>>As new trading relationships have bedded in, Russian exporters have dared to raise prices, supporting revenues and profits. The discount on oil Russia offers to Chinese customers, for instance, has fallen from more than 10% in early 2022 to about 5% today. And it is not just oil. Mr Putin boasts about soaring ice-cream exports to China, noting last week that he “treated my friend, President Xi Jinping”, to a lick.

As every Russian knows, inflation is never truly defeated. Central-bank officials continue to fret that inflation expectations remain too high. The biggest worry is that the rouble may depreciate, either because of lower oil prices, another round of serious sanctions or if China loses interest in supporting Mr Putin. These are serious concerns. Nevertheless, the world’s pariah economy is once again back on track.<<

http://youtu.be/_U0PKMWu-5w
Complete Imminent Collapse Of The Frontlines - The Hard Truth - Ukraine War Map Analysis & News

http://youtu.be/_q5oufQTSOM
Russian T-72B3 Destroys US-Made M1 Abrams as Russia's Strategy of Attrition Grinds Ukraine Down

Ukraine is out of weapons, out of ammo, out of men.
Russia are gaining territory all across the line of contact and there's dead Ukrainians everywhere.
http://www.youtube.com/@militarysummary/videos

Baldrick,

No one trades in Rubles anymore

"The price at which Russia sells its oil has declined markedly since the second phase began. The shift reflects the effects of reduced oil prices globally over this period, but also a significant widening in the discount Russia earns relative to other global oil suppliers. That discount rose from a low of $12 to $13 per barrel of crude oil in October to about $19 per barrel over the past month.

Energy market participants, analysts, and even Putin’s own oil czar have linked the rising discount on Russian oil to the Coalition’s increased enforcement activities reflected in the second phase of the price cap—clear evidence that this second phase is working.

Russian oil export volumes have remained stable in recent months. The price cap is helping maintain a steady supply of energy to global consumers and businesses. At the same time, the price cap, along with key sanctions enforcement measures, is reducing Putin’s profits from selling that oil."

http://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/phase-two-of-the-price-cap-on-russian-oil-two-years-after-putins-invasion

Russia's oil production has fallen 20% from 11BB/day to 9BB/day

gas sales have dropped 60% and Russia is not exporting refined products. Probably due to the daily hits on Russian refineries by Ukrainian drones

As for your claims of the Ukrainian army, you have claimed their complete destruction 6 times over 2 years but they continue killing Russians by the hundreds every day.

An article (not Google ravings) I read this morning suggests that, despite Russia's isolation, sanctions and more than 80,000 deaths in Ukraine, Putin still enjoys the support of a “critical mass of his people”, with whom he shares “a vision of Russia as a strong powerful nation which the West is determined to destroy”.

This, even though Putin has “made a fetish” of defending a Russian national sovereignty “that none one had attempted to destroy”. And the fact that despite his attempt to halt NATO expansion he has extended it to “a formerly neutral Sweden and Finland.

But, it is reported, the average Russian household at the end of 2023 had about “18 percent more money in the bank” than they did the previous year. In the poorest areas of Russia, where 33% of the population live below the poverty line. You would expect a cheer for Putin from them. Even though these areas provide most of the soldiers to fight in Russia, there are 5 million rules in compensation for every soldier killed.

Only Russians have ever understood themselves and their country.

ttbn,

The reality is that the families of those 400,000 Russian soldiers killed or maimed are seldom paid any compensation due to the maze of paperwork needed to claim compensation.

"Some have lost a limb or their life, others their freedom. But in multiple cases, Russian contract soldiers and their families have received none of the benefits promised by the state for signing up to fight in Ukraine -- no combat bonus pay, no pardons of convictions, no compensation for injury or death, and no documentation to prove they ever fought at all, RFE/RL’s Russian investigative unit, Systema, has found.

The findings are based on evidence that includes conversations that Systema and Current Time conducted with soldiers, former soldiers, and relatives.

The hundreds of thousands of people who have signed agreements with the Russian Defense Ministry to fight in Ukraine play a crucial role in the Kremlin’s efforts to maintain manpower without resorting to a mass call-up like the one President Vladimir Putin ordered in September 2022. That mobilization proved highly unpopular, prompting large numbers of young Russians to flee the country, and analysts say Putin is particularly wary of such a move ahead of the March 2024 presidential election."

As for the Russian economy, the figures from the Russian Reserve Bank show the shrinking revenues and soaring war expenditures that are chewing up Russia's reserves are not sustainable. The revenues from selling ice cream to China are insignificant. It doesn't help that more than 1000,000 of Russia's best and brightest have fled the country.

Russia cannot replace the planes, tanks etc that are being destroyed while the EU is ramping up production of 155mm ammo etc, supplying F16s Grippens and other aircraft on an ongoing basis while Russia is using antique T55s and T62s.

Russia is losing this war.

The Ruble was never global currency.

Russia was and remains a third world economy with a couple of first world cities and first world weapons. It never recovered from Stalin's purges and the people have always lived a frugal life. Take yourself 30 minutes out of Moscow and you may as well be living in the slums of the Philippines.

The feed-back I get from my Russian acquaintances is that things are no better or worse than they were before the war. When you live in a frugal state there isn't much room for things to get worse and they haven't. The feed-back is that the death toll is noticeable, particularly outside Moscow and efforts to avoid being sent to the front are strenuous. But overall, the people are somewhat supportive of the war.

The Ruble will never be world currency. Russia is rushing headlong into becoming vassal state of the Han Empire.

Whether Russia is winning the war depends on how you define winning. Putin originally said he wanted to keep NATO away from Russia's borders. Well he's already lost on that front. Instead he has NATO vastly strengthened, Europe gearing up to face Russia, Sweden now in the fold, Poland racing to becoming the pre-eminent force in Europe.

Putin might end up with new territory and new peoples to immiserate, and he'll call that victory. But the war's been a disaster for the Russia's future.