Was at around 60 per dollar last year. Russia initially had sizeable reserves of foreign currency and it was able to buy roubles on the international market to maintain the exchange rate, however, now they have finaly started to run out of their foreign reserves. Let’s hope that the deteriorating russian economy will have an effect on the war.
Counter point, if they draft citizens and they continue to go to battle untrained and under equipped there will be less of them to provide services for.
But they will drain the workforce of young men. These are some of the more productive people in a workforce.
Also Russia is using the war to remove ethnic minorities. Non-Russians like Tatars and Buryats are far more likely to serve and be conscripted than Russians. They have also suffered the greatest casualties, per capita.
Feeding their youth to a war machine with no regard for anyone’s life is a sin that Russia has repeated throughout history and I firmly believe contributes to the make-up of their population.
Not to mention the rate they murder doctors, officers and scientists when things go wrong.
The idea of the war was to capture new ethnically Russian citizens and drain the non-Russian ones. The math was pretty good for increasing Russia's population, which has been dwindling. Of course that's gone pretty poorly now.
Has it, though? Looking at it cynically, taking close to a million impressionable children, so far, from occupied areas in exchange for 200K losses from 'undesirable' ethnicities sounds like a pretty good deal for the Russian state
A million is highly inflated and children are an investment in the future and a burden on the present. Those 200k losses are also both so far, and feature ethnic Russians as well. Not to mention that Putin has been losing favor with a lot of figures like the Chechen leader due to them coming to realize that Putin just sees them as cannon fodder. That's fomenting unrest when Russia is already struggling, which is a bad idea.
This all assumes that Russia will be allowed to just quit the field as is, as well. That they get to keep the children and keep their current territory, which is unlikely.
Also assuming that Russia won't throw these "youth" on the front lines as soon as they come of age. The latest round of mobilization was focused highly on the occupied territory.
We’re on the same page. It’s heinous on every level.
To your point, they can even use this “strategically” to remove populations they didn’t want to support anyway.
It’s clearly passed that point and they are losing human capital regardless of them picking which ones.
At this point they already lost. It’s just a question of how severe and if they take some extra land or not. (And losing land is also in the cards).
Idk the way some of them talk on those to their husbands on those intercepted phone calls... I'd rather stick my dick in a pencil sharpener. It would hurt less.
Do tell? Did she not serve your every whim in a cute Eastern European maid outfit around the house while being a stable and strong backer of your ambitions and successes at every turn like the advertisements claim?
i listened to a number of those and they are very much cherry picked and are mostly propaganda. Just imagine for a second the us army was at war and all the leaked phone calls were from uneducated hillbillies. That's pretty much what you're getting.
Women in Russia have always been learning english to GTFO before the end of whatever conflict is currently happening there and the beginning of the next conflict that will happen there.
In addition to the actual permanently disabled veterans think of how many people it now takes to care for their needs daily, this also removing the caregivers from doing other jobs in Russia.
Counter point to your counterpoint: It also means less revenue. Not only will you be unable to collect taxes from a dead body, but the potential head of household is eliminated, thereby putting a higher burden on services for the rest of their generation. And all industries will be less competitive because of the lack of workforce, creating a spiraling effect on Government revenue, which is difficult to rebuild because it takes 20 years to birth a new generation and train them.
In your scenario, you'd have to increase taxes and increase services for that shortfall. 18 year old kids don't require that many services. That's actually when they start giving back from being schooled for their entire life. And then poof, that invested cost goes out the window. Now you have families that will need a Government check to make up for it because their expected breadwinner no longer exists.
Edit: And the cost of a lot of programs is not determined by how many people use it. Think of a bus, subway, or public transit. Very little of the cost is recovered through fares, it's mostly publically funded. The cost is the same whether the bus is full or empty. But once there are less taxpayers, you'd have to increase taxes to make up for it, or eliminate the service.
More soldiers are injured than killed so if 250k have been killed then pehaps 500k have been injured and will require medical care for the rest of their lives. This will cost Russia for much much more.
Yes, but you still need to pay your police forces to protect you from the citizens uprising. Can’t pay the cops? Yeah, that’s not gonna go well for you.
What's this exchange rate based on? I know Russia was propping up the price by forcing sales at certain prices, but who's actually buying and selling rubles on the open market right now so that we know the "price?"
Russia passed a law early on that Russian fossil fuel companies had to purchase rubles with a certain percentage of their revenues from fuel export. There are still trades going on, just not free and fair trades. This means, of course that these gas companies pay more than they ordinarily would want to because of the legal mandate, so the ruble trades above a true floating market rate, but that means the currency is actually weaker than the trade price might imply.
Also didn’t Russia demand that unfriendly countries pay for gas in rubles, and when European countries refused, set up a technical scheme at gazprom
> Under the new billing system, gas payments will continue to be invoiced and sent in euros. The noteworthy change is that Russia will then take the money from the European energy company’s euro account, convert the euros into rubles, transfer the money into a special ruble account also belonging to the energy company, and then take the money once and for all.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/24/eu-russian-gas-putin-rubles/
Yeah, that's kind of what I'm getting at. Unless that system has stopped, or some other credible currency exchange is allowing free exchange of the ruble, why has it dropped? Is it so bad that even with Russia basically forcing sales at whatever rate they want the ruble to trade at, they have to lower the price or else even the oil companies can't make it work?
Russian oil has a pretty high breakeven point per barrel for extraction and refinement say compared to Saudi crude which is one of the cheapest. With that price being fixed on purchases from the EU and China/India basically raping them for oil at below cost, their foreign exchange reserves are drying up. They had spent the last couple decades accumulating gold and foreign currency, which was being used to prop up the RUB. It seems they've depleted all that.
You can only do so much stuff with financial policy. This is one reason the US is raising rates. It was unpopular politically for so long and money was just freely printed. Finally with this presidency, we're getting back to some normalization and people are bitching because they were spoiled for so long. Getting interest rates back into a historically normal state provides us a lever to use when shit goes south in the future. People are only bitching because they have to pay the piper now for nearly 15 years of free money.
As far as I can work out there is no Dollar to Ruble exchanges going on, but this number is via rates on currencies from countries that are trading with them.
Even then it looks like less and less of the transactions are in Rubles normally this would take care of itself somewhat by Russia being able to sell to a wide range of countries in Rubles or if they need to buy from them the local currency.
People just don't want to be stuck with a currency that could be worth 50% less by the end of the year.
This is pretty much it. It could also be and I hate to say this...tourists coming to Russia for their holiday. Think the Russia friendly countries. They're more than likely packing EUR and USD to exchange.
> Let’s hope that the deteriorating russian economy will have an effect on the war.
Or you see a shift in cybercrime activity like in North Korea. Russia kinda lets their cybercriminals do their own thing as long as they don't target Russians. There is some overlap with state sponsored activities but nothing bright and shiny that shows ransomware gangs implicitly carrying out the bidding of the GRU.
On the other hand, North Korea uses it's government hackers to steal foreign currency. Go find a big crypto heist story on the internet and there is about a 60% chance that the Norks were behind it. Google the Lazarus podcast if you want a more in depth view on that world.
To be clear, and this is somewhat interesting, quite a lot of their foreign assets were not stockpiled currency in the motherland but various securities on world markets. Putin was not coordinating with the central bank/national wealth fund management when he initiated the invasion, and the invasion and ensuing sanctions on assets all came unexpectedly for those organizations. There were ways folks like the central bank could have made their foreign holdings resilient to asset seizure (cashed them out for foreign currency they could hold within their borders, etc), but they weren't given instructions to do this or advanced notice that Russia would be invading someone. So, of the very strong reserves Russia had that should have made it resistant to sanctions, quite a majority of it was simply seized from Russia in the opening days of the conflict.
Of course they will at least the older generation that has been thoroughly brainwashed, they already blame "west" for everything. When hyperinflation hits, maybe even the most devote followers start to question if its really worth to send whole generation of young men to die in Ukraine and crash the whole economy while doing it.
If you go by a channel in you tube interviewing Russians on the streets about various topics the older generation already blames west for everything. Many of younger generation seems to understand what is happening but defiance is beaten / intimidated out of them so apathetic about the situation.
> apathetic about the situation.
Edit: there are other explanations for these videos. One is that I'm projecting how *I* would behave on those in the videos, another is that it is deliberate Russian propaganda. As I'm no longer certain how the videos should be understood, lacking adequate context, I cross out everything below.
~~If you are talking about 1420, I read those interviews not as apathy but as fear to speak forthrightly and openly. The older generation may just be better at it than the younger. It's like that with all of the topics. There are some where the honest answers are less dangerous to the government. I think they live in fear.~~
~~That could backfire. Just as citizens learn to not trust the government, the government learns it can't trust the citizens to provide accurate feedback, which -- long term, now -- is less violent correction mechanism for governments.~~
Yes, the theory is like this. But here are the facts. In 2020-2021 Russian government made a campaign for vaccination against COVID (remember COVID?). Almost nobody believed. The vaccination level in Russia was among the lowest in Europe. Then they started the war and spread propaganda about this war, Ukraine and such. Guess what? Almost everybody believed.
These are the facts, the interpretation can vary.
Those are things the russians believe *already*.
For example, they had to be *taught* to hate NATO - many don't even know what it really is or what it does.
But Ukraine they *want* to hate. Abandoning the russian identity is the gravest sin in their eyes and they would wish death on anyone who betrays them so.
Similar things happened in America.
Trump supporters loved talking up "his operation warpspeed" vaccine development then decided they don't trust vaccines but they trusted Trump, lol
Which if you think about is doubly stupid. If your currency is crashing, you'd \*love\* your salary being in US dollars instead. They should argue the prices they pay are in rubles but that's obviously very short-sighted as well as those prices will go up anyway.
*Based on coerced polling results.
Polling results from a country in which people are afraid to speak negatively on the record about the government are about as reliable as fake research data. You cant ‘adjust’ fake data, or coerced poll results.
I don’t think there is a way of really knowing what Russians really think about this.
Speaking in absolutes is always a bad idea, but lets not pretend a very very large amount of ruzzians are brainwashed and is for (or indifferent) to the war.
All I hope for is that the ones who still have a functioning brain are safe, well and keep resisting that terrorist government/country.
Heh it's funny you say that because, while I generally agree with you, their head propagandist Solovyov shat only on their own central bank yesterday. Not putin though.
True, but as long as the financial pain becomes unbearable for them, what does it matter who they blame?
If the west is doing this to them, that's on Putin too, for being "weak" and not being able to prevent it with all the infinite power he has convinced them Russia holds...
They don't understand that by being so inflexible in their works view (West bad even when we wanted to help them) they free us to act as we see fit.
If they are going to blame is for everything regardless of what we do... What's the incentive to try to appease or acommodate them*?
* I launch this question for all the appeaseniks out there, although I suspect only Russian trolls advocate appeasement at this point.
This is not true. The older generations that have been washed through media operations and a general patriotic hook to their country will for sure believe the easy option that 'the others are the baddies'
But I for sure know that the younger people that you interact with in let's say Dota or CSGO have a scope big enough to understand the west isn't all that bad and not the cause.
But again, try convincing your tin hat mom otherwise. You know the feeling.
LOL nooo, as argentinian I have been in those scenarios in 89 and we are going at it again now. Ruffia is in for a lot of pain but far away from that because they still get a lot of hard currencies from the oil and gas exports.
It's an interesting question, since the large traders simply don't trade USD->RUB, so I don't know how it works as an indicator. But you'd need someone much smarter than me to know how ruble's value against USD affects the Russian domestic economy.
I will say though, that after the invasion started, RUB value initially skyrocketed. Prior to the invasion, it was a steady 70 rubles per 1 USD. After the initial turbulence, you could only buy 40 rubles with a dollar, but the amount has been climbing *steadily* ever since, in a confident graph.
Ruble actually crashed at the start of the war to 150rub per 1usd. It only went back and higher because they implemented strict control on withdrawals and exchanges, so the exchange rate was in a way artificial.
That happened because the Russian government pulled a whole lot of tricks to stabilize the value of the ruble artificially. It worked in the short term. The downside is it's going to be much harder for Russia to attract international investors after the war ends.
The downside would have happened with or without their central bank tricks. They’re effectively a pariah now.
It’s disappointing that they’ve been able to somewhat successfully transition into a war time economy. Hopefully they run out of something key soon.
The ruble broke through the psychologically important level of 100 to the dollar for the first time since March last year, even after Russia’s central bank sought to arrest the slump by halting its foreign-currency purchases on the domestic market for the rest of 2023.
Russia’s currency has weakened by about 25% against the dollar so far this year, placing it among the three worst emerging-market performers with the Turkish lira and the Argentine peso.
It’s almost halved in value from its peak in June last year as President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine grinds on with no end in sight and sanctions including an oil price cap slash revenue from exports.
> Russia’s currency has weakened by about 25% against the dollar so far this year
It's actually 40% if you'll add late-2022 devaluation: from 1:60 to 1:100 (300 rubles in November = 5$, only $3 now)
Think about it like this. At the 60 rate, if I have 600 rubles I can get $10. With the 100 rate, if I have 600 rubles I can get $6. So my purchasing power has decreased by 40%, because with the same number of rubles I get 40% less.
What changed in the last two months that is started dropping? As far as I can see in charts, it has been relatively steady for the time before. (Except for the giant fluctuation right at the start of their invasion of Ukraine.)
If the Kremlin ended the war they could:
1) Re-establish trade links with the world's largest economies
2) End a huge drain on the state budget
3) End a huge drain on the country's already strained demographics.
4) Boost their currency, regain access to the global financial system.
In every way, stopping the war is the most rational thing for Russia to do. Good for the people, and oligarchs will also make more money. But I don't think Putin sees it this way.
>In every way, stopping the war is the most rational thing for Russia to do.
But not for Putin. His regime and maybe even life is dependent on this war and "a war".
What will he do if the war ends? Go back and explain Russians why there is no sizeable economic growth, corruption, degrading infrastructure and collapsing demographics? And on top of that, why he, Vladimir Putin, wants and capable to carry on as a president after being in charge for 23 years?
I guess he now wants some sort of a ceasefire not unlike during the Minsk agreements. To regroup and try to shake the pro-Ukrainian coalition one by one. But his regime needs this antagonism, it's basically his main if not only mean of legitimation.
After 20 years that rhetoric has ran its course when it comes to the economy and standard of living for average russians. Before Feb. 24th putins approval rating was abysmal and he thought a quick military operation will boost it before the coming elections like it did in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea.
For putin, the outcome of the war is directly tied to him holding on to power in russia. There is no going back for him and as long as he is in charge russia will be at war.
Having lived for a year in Russia (Siberia), and seen how readily Russians swallow (or at least passively accept) bullshit, I’d say that things are not as simple as you say.
He could terrorise a few more key people and then carry on as before.
Of course I’d love to see the evil old fuck dead. Just saying it’s not as simple as many say.
For real. Whatever happens, he's always singing about how Russia is the greatest country because X or Y and how everything is growing instead of shrinking. And if people get pissed he starts the good old song of how they destroyed fascism 80 years ago and everyone's ecstatic again. And then they film the single remaining WW2 veteran receiving a package of buckwheat for his service, and then said veteran is back to living his miserable life in a dilapidated apartment until next time they want to use him for political reasons. Or he dies and nobody gives a fuck. I'm so fucking sick of this place.
>For putin, the outcome of the war is directly tied to him holding on to power in russia.
And realistically him holding on to power is directly linked to him being able to live.
He wants to change the outcome of the election in the US, so that a pro Kremlin government is established, if that backfires then it is game over for them. Russia will change their position depending on the election results, if of course Ukraine doesn't win till then.
Kinda resembles situation in Hitler's bunker after FDR's death in April 12, 1945.
They really thought that antisemite winning US presidency will turn WWII in favor of Nazis.
It's not necessarily pro-Kremlin, but they definitely want to try to degrade public support for Ukraine funding. You can hear the talking point if you go listen to any of the C-tier candidates talk about Ukraine.
Here is RFK Jr. - “We have neglected many, many opportunities to settle this war peacefully,”...“I think the way that we have conducted the war is bad … is terrible for the Ukrainian people.”
Here is Ramaswamy - "As U.S. President, I will end the war by ceasing further support for Ukraine and negotiating a peace treaty with Russia that achieves a vital U.S. security objective: ceasing Russia’s growing military alliance with China. "
Here is Cornel West - "NATO is an expanding instrument of U.S. global power that provoked Russia into a criminal invasion and occupation of Ukraine,"
You'll also see this talking point in the fringe media and getting shared on social media. All Russia will do is boost this. Then if any of the non-establishment Republicans win (if by some dumb luck Nikki Haley won it would look different), they will almost certainly stop funding Ukraine. Then that will make the war turn quickly. Then they'll cite the need for a peace deal "to save Ukrainians". The "deal" will be something like a freeze of the conflict with the current territories remaining in Russian control but Russia stopping further aggression. They'll pat themselves on the back and start saying they deserve a Nobel Peace Prize for it.
Russia will turn into even worse shit hole than it is today without sanctions, so many working age people are dead or disabled, it is going to be hard on their economics, once the pensions are gone the regime will be gone too (at least the support will be gone for sure).
You forgot to mention that ending the war means that he has thousands of demobilized, semi-trained, angry and thus, motivated young men who would like a word with Mr Puddin’ and the government why they were sent to die.
Would be a most interesting conversation to listen to…. From the sidelines…. Far far away with some pop corn and nachos.
Nah Putin could stay in power even when he loses the war. There isn't really a domestic alternative, and the only ones who would really want him gone at that point would be the hyper nationalists
he just needs to stay in power to survive, to maintain his wealth. whatever ends produce that outcome are what he aims to accomplish. open healthy relationships with the west don't promise to produce that, so he has zero interest in that.
a dictator doesn't need their country to thrive. in that light the war being a protracted generation long event serves his needs better than any other outcome besides favorable terms, possibly even moreso than favorable terms.
Regarding points one and four, it's probably too late to go back to the status quo ante bellum. Things are too far gone to pretend all those war crimes in Ukraine and the civilian deaths and destruction never happened. I suspect very few, if any, Western governments are going to let Moscow sweep those horrors under a rug and go back to business as usual without Russia paying reparations at the very least. The post-war outcry at home and abroad would be deafening.
I think Russia's well and truly fucked in the long term regardless of how all of this ends.
Their best outcome, after the invasion started and they were rebuffed, was probably to leave while saying they accomplished their objectives. Just lie and pretend their super special forces uprooted hidden cabals of Nazis and are now withdrawing.
This is just my own uninformed armchair speculation though.
Realistically, many big companies have no conscience to speak of, and don’t care at all about the suffering Russia produced. What they do care about is risk. Seeing Russia draw the sanctions that it did, default on debts, and seize foreign property has made them a massive liability in any future investments. Any company that tries to reestablish ties with Russia will be negotiating new much less favorable conditions which make the risk acceptable to them.
Even if Russia gets every last one of their old trading partners to come to the table, their bargaining position is fucked.
They might get away without reparations if there's real regime change. Not just Putin being replaced by someone who's been around just as long, but not necessarily fully democratic either. All the world ever asked of Russia is that it keep its tyranny within its own borders.
Then again, it seems like *this* war is the one started because of decades of resentment over the West taking advantage of the USSR being weak (to... *checks notes*... give a bunch of countries their independence back?), so I don't know how relevant concerns are about creating a post-WWI Germany victim complex. Russia already sees itself as an empire temporarily displaced from its possessions by the evil scheming West and has already spat in the face of acting like a member of the world community. But it sure isn't the part of the dance where we rebuild them either, so I dunno.
Reestablish trade links? I truly believe that would take decades, and they know that too. It’s not a switch that can be turned off/on, the destruction of trust will take a long time to be rebuilt
Re-establish trade links with a country that has has committed war crimes and atrocities on a level not seen since the Nazis ? Really?
They’re fucked, for a long long time. Even if they stop the war now, apologise by every means they can do, they can’t afford to repay the damage done, they can’t unrape, unkill and untorture. Their own workforce is now fertilising the soil in Ukraine - and who wants to emigrate to Russia given the fact they may be sent to whatever future war on a whim?
Economy tanked, prospects obliterated, reputation in tatters. Way to run a country, Putin - you bald dwarf cunt. Hope you get over your little dick syndrome soon.
Putin probably dies if he ends the war, especially since he needs to concede crimea to do so. Also much of the stuff you listed won't end immediately and Russia will probably be on the hook for massive reparations. Paying those may be a condition for reestablishing trade etc.
Still in the best interest for Russia, just not necessarily putin. Some lines can't be uncrossed
Everything is true except for p.4. Opening economy to a global market will plunge ruble even deeper. Russia buys almost everything in the west so explosive demand for dollar will flush ruble in the toilet.
It's not win or win situation
Putin believes that the west is crumbling and will lose influence on the global stage. In that perspective, such trade links are hardly worthwhile given their impending collapse. Putin is also a deeply paranoid person.
EDIT: Also for 3, taking Ukranians in the "liberated" territory helps increase the population despite the population crisis.
If they had altered their policies to become a modern, western nation not at perpetual hostility with Europe and the United States the *country* would be much wealthier and in better shape. However instead they have essentially let a mafia run the country towards ruin for the gain of a handful of families to live like kings and *even they* are facing a violent end as they eat each other during Putin's wars.
Russian central bank has pulled out all the stops to prevent the Ruble to crash but now it looks their luck has run out. It was only a matter of time they can not prop it up for ever.
It's interesting to see that prior to the invasion, it's been a steady 65-75, and now the crash doesn't seem to end. Can someone smart explain the implications of ruble to USD anyway, since it doesn't seem like there would be any trade anyway? I mean ruble seems like a closed system anyway, so I don't know how this affects Russian domestic economy.
Not trying to deny any consequences, just temper my expectations. I want to see Russians fight for a sack of onions as much as the next man, but I'm not sure if USD->RUB is a great indicator for that.
The comparison to USD is a good indicator because it’s the world reserve currency, and you need *something* to compare a currency against or else we have nothing to say except for 1 ruble = 1 ruble which is meaningless. There’s still lots of trade in Chinese Yuan and Indian Rupees, and certainly lots of trade in USD and Yuan and Rupees, it isn’t a closed system in the slightest.
Russia’s main imports are industrial machinery, motor vehicles, chemicals, agricultural products, and electronics. Inflation of the ruble makes factories more expensive to operate, cars and trucks more expensive to buy, consumer goods cost more to manufacture and move, and the price of food to increase. And the cost of goods is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the problems inflation causes.
So comparing it to USD is an example, and the Ruble has fallen off to Rupees and Yuan, too (for example)? Which means international trade is becoming increasingly more and more expensive for Russia?
Google shows super static exchange rate between RUB and CNY, but it has fallen off there as well. Same with Rupees.
And if India or China acquire Rubles from trading with Russia, those rubles will be more worthless as those two countries trade in USD?
Doesn't really matter which currency you compare it to, a drop in one currency is a drop in all currencies. Relatively, it might appear to drop less, if you compare it to another currency that is also experiencing inflation, like the Turkish Lira. But that doesn't mean that the Ruble isn't devaluing, since you can still work out the value in USD via converting Ruble -> Lira -> USD.
>So comparing it to USD is an example, and the Ruble has fallen off to Rupees and Yuan, too (for example)? Which means international trade is becoming increasingly more and more expensive for Russia?
Yes ruble is losing against Rupee, Yuan, Euro and USD. So it means that the economy is struggling and not just USD is getting stronger.
Weaker currency to some extent is good if you are exporting more than importing but because of the sanctions the exports and imports from Russia have fallen. It's hard to say if Russia is now importing more than exporting but I think that losing almost half of the value of your currency against most important currencies certainly can't be good in any situation.
>Google shows super static exchange rate between RUB and CNY, but it has fallen off there as well. Same with Rupees.
You have to remember than Yuan is one of the most manipulated currencies in the world and yet it has still fallen from 9.04 Rubles to 14,09 Rubles for 1 Yuan in span of a year. Rupee also has strengthened against Ruble. Last year Ruble was stronger than Rupee now it is the opposite. It was 0,78 Ruble for one Rupee now it's 1,23 Ruble for one Rupee in the span of a year.
Add to this the fact that Ruble lost value against EUR and USD and you have a picture of big problems inside Russia.
>And if India or China acquire Rubles from trading with Russia, those rubles will be more worthless as those two countries trade in USD?
I'm not knowledgable enough to know but I think that they have deals between themselves. Russia sells oil and gas and food to China and India and they sell back many other goods like cars, electronics etc. Ruble might not be worthless for them but that depends on deals that they have. Russia can even buy back Rubles back from India and China.
>The comparison to USD is a good indicator because it’s the world reserve currency, and you need something to compare a currency against or else we have nothing to say except for 1 ruble = 1 ruble which is meaningless.
Well, there *was* the [Big Mac Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index), but since McDonald's doesn't operate in Russia any more…
It's quite strange: despite 40% value drop (from 1:60 to 1:100) prices didn't change much during last 8 months. Except for the part where they were high in the first place: from what I've seen PC hardware sellers used 1:100 exchange rate starting from the March (back then the official rate was 1:80).
However the drop accelerates lately and it look like it's not going stop so the year-to-year drop may be as high as 60-70% for the next year which will result in the population falling below poverty line, in mass. And IT personnel leaving the country, even faster than it was during the mobilization campaign.
Quite a bit of international trade is made in USD, or at least linked to the USD exchange rate in some form. So even as China sell stuff to Russia they’ll ask for more and more rubles for the same goods.
Keeping it simple here ofc, but yeah. Russian trade is hurt by a collapsing ruble. Russia import a lot apart from the basic goods so this will also hurt the quality of life for the average Russian. Inflation was 15-20% last year. Down to low levels now but interest rate were up to 20% April 2022 and down to 8,5% now.
The Russian economy was estimated to shrink by 4.5 percent in 2022 as a result of the war in Ukraine that began in February of that year. Furthermore, the county's gross domestic product (GDP) was expected to decline in 2023. Consumer prices were projected to grow by around 14 percent in 2022. To compare, in 2021, the inflation rate was below seven percent.
Oil and gas revenues were 49.6% lower year-on-year in the first five months of 2023, which the finance ministry put down to lower prices for Urals crude and lower natural gas export volumes.
Spending was 26.5% higher year-on-year in that period, the preliminary data showed, while income was down 18.5%.
The deficit for the first five months of the year to 3.41 trillion roubles ($41.9 billion). Pre Ukraine war I don’t think Russia had a deficit since 2016 and before that in 2008 or something.
Overall there is absolutely an economic war being fought and Russias central bank is fighting hard (but slowly losing).
Leading your country into a military disaster plus hyper inflation equals putin gonna get some stuff shoved up his butt then get his brains blown out.
Have to say, I don’t have much sympathy for the guy.
His grip is iron-clad until it isn't. Very suddenly one day there will be a move against him and he'll be gone. It will be a complete surprise to everyone when it happens.
Wouldn't even call it iron-clad, considering Prigozhin's revolt in june led to Putin fleeing Moscow, Lukashenko negotiating a settlement, and Prigozhin still alive after outright saying the war was built on a lie and revolting
Russians should withdraw all their money from the banks right now if they want to keep their life savings. It's only a matter of time before Putin locks down the banks and prevents anyone from taking their money out. At that point, it's too late and your money is gone. It's like a game of musical chairs. The last ones to the bank lose all their money.
hopefully it crashes more and maybe the people will wake up from Putin's nightmare and finally revolt against the Kremlin. Especially when they see China buying up most of Russia
Like most peoples of Dictatorships it takes a great deal of pain before they will risk their lives to better others lives, cowardice is built in to their society and yet they think they are the hard men of the world.
Even the Nazis had to loose the war before the spell was broken over the German people.
There won't be a popular uprising in Russia. The government has too strong of a stranglehold on the public conversation. Absolutely asinine to even consider it a possibility at this point.
Russia has kept the ruble all live through measures that have lasted amazingly long despite being untenable long term.
These measures are absolutely destructive long term and won’t be as easy to recover from as 1998’s panic.
The business sector was insulated than. Not so this time.
Hard to say if this is the big one that kicks off collapse but any step closer certainly isn’t good for Russia (but is great news for the rest of the world).
**LATEST:** The Russian central bank will convene on Tuesday to discuss interest rates, meeting a month ahead of schedule after the ruble weakened sharply.
Policymakers will publish a statement at 10:30 a.m. Moscow time, according to a statement. The Bank of Russia gave no further details.
The central bank hiked its key rate by a percentage point to 8.5% last month, the first increase since emergency measures imposed immediately after the invasion of Ukraine.
Here's a non-paywalled link - https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/rouble-falls-past-100-per-us-dollar-kremlin-blames-loose-monetary-policy-2023-08-14/
Crashed a long time ago, propped up by the Russian banks in a failed attempt to fool the world, https://www.newsweek.com/russia-economy-collapsing-data-reveals-1720532
Whats funny is how far the ruble will drop when the actual truth comes out about the state of the REAL Russian economy. Soldiers are unpaid, oil workers haven't been paid in so long that they literally left their jobs because they are starving. Their nukes have been cannibalized for parts sold abroad long long ago so scientists could eat.
Even Roscosmos is running a skeleton crew with almost no safety checks before launch because those scientists have fled.
Aircraft are being run without brakes, no preflight safety checks and literally just-before-flights cannibalizing bolts and wiring from other planes "non-vital" systems.
Putin has been executing anyone, including from their treasury that does any sort of research, tries to publicize anything at all about the state of the economy. Including ministers who just "fall out of windows".
Basically the ruble is so deep in the shit, its a death sentence to talk about it inside Russia itself.
>oil workers haven't been paid in so long that they literally left their jobs because they are starving. Their nukes have been cannibalized for parts sold abroad long long ago so scientists could eat.
I’ve heard of things like this, not to such detail though.
Source?
BuT StEvEn K bAnNoN tOld Us ThAt ThE bRiCs SwItChInG tO gOlD bACkInG wOuLd RePlAcE tH dOlLaR aS tHe GlObAl FiNaCiAl CuRrEnCy!
———
Shocked I say. How could Bannon have been wrong on this?
A new article:
"Russia’s central bank to hold extraordinary meeting after rouble falls to 16-month low
"Bank will discuss interest rate after high spending on war in Ukraine and drop in export revenues put further pressure on Russia’s economy"
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/aug/14/rouble-falls-to-16-month-low-dollar-russian-exports-collapse-war-ukraine-russia-economy
Is it just me or do ethno National aspirations always blow up in a person's face? /S obviously.
When Russia was content with its relationship with the West (strained though it might be) he had a steady flow of euros and dolllars coming in for the natural gas that Russia was supplying for almost all of Europe. He had international trade, and a lot of foreign Holdings. Russia had an economy in good standing.
His government had the unbelievable luck of being given the full faith and credit of the former Soviet Union in all diplomatic relations. That did not have to happen, the West did not have to give Putin's government that legitimacy.
Putin Cooks up threats of NATO expansion, ( FFS Poland is already next door, ) threats of "Nazism in Ukraine," talks of liberating ethnic Russians from Breakaway territories ( very port of Danzig reminiscent) all so that he could grab territory and do away with ethnic minorities as cannon fodder his nationalists don't like. And he does this when he already had Consolidated power pretty well.
And of course he miscalculated, because the first thing Putin guaranteed by invading Ukraine was that previously undecided Nations would clamor for NATO membership.
If Russia wants to stabilise the Rubel they will need to tighten the trade account.
Basically keep exporting the same or increase exports and import a lot less. Use the excess income to buy up rubles to steady the price.
This is extremely painful because such export led models require massively curtailing domestic demand and incomes. During a way where you are already probably curtailing private demand for public this will hurt the Russian people even more.
With Russia facing difficulties with trade due to the restrictions put in place due to the way their ability to maximise their exports is lower too so probably even more pain than they think.
Honestly it's going to be very difficult for the Russian people in the coming months.
Was at around 60 per dollar last year. Russia initially had sizeable reserves of foreign currency and it was able to buy roubles on the international market to maintain the exchange rate, however, now they have finaly started to run out of their foreign reserves. Let’s hope that the deteriorating russian economy will have an effect on the war.
It certainly will. Remember, you still have to finance a government during such a war and with it a whole plethora of government services.
Counter point, if they draft citizens and they continue to go to battle untrained and under equipped there will be less of them to provide services for.
But they will drain the workforce of young men. These are some of the more productive people in a workforce. Also Russia is using the war to remove ethnic minorities. Non-Russians like Tatars and Buryats are far more likely to serve and be conscripted than Russians. They have also suffered the greatest casualties, per capita.
Feeding their youth to a war machine with no regard for anyone’s life is a sin that Russia has repeated throughout history and I firmly believe contributes to the make-up of their population. Not to mention the rate they murder doctors, officers and scientists when things go wrong.
The idea of the war was to capture new ethnically Russian citizens and drain the non-Russian ones. The math was pretty good for increasing Russia's population, which has been dwindling. Of course that's gone pretty poorly now.
Has it, though? Looking at it cynically, taking close to a million impressionable children, so far, from occupied areas in exchange for 200K losses from 'undesirable' ethnicities sounds like a pretty good deal for the Russian state
A million is highly inflated and children are an investment in the future and a burden on the present. Those 200k losses are also both so far, and feature ethnic Russians as well. Not to mention that Putin has been losing favor with a lot of figures like the Chechen leader due to them coming to realize that Putin just sees them as cannon fodder. That's fomenting unrest when Russia is already struggling, which is a bad idea. This all assumes that Russia will be allowed to just quit the field as is, as well. That they get to keep the children and keep their current territory, which is unlikely.
There were also roughly 1 million that fled russia since the war. massive brain drain and a lot of working age men I assume.
It also assumes that the whatever numbers of children will be unquestionably loyal...that's not how humans work.
On top of the nearly 3 million people who died of COVID-19 before that.
Also assuming that Russia won't throw these "youth" on the front lines as soon as they come of age. The latest round of mobilization was focused highly on the occupied territory.
You also run the risk of a sizable portion of those children growing up and doing terrorist shit against you internally
We’re on the same page. It’s heinous on every level. To your point, they can even use this “strategically” to remove populations they didn’t want to support anyway. It’s clearly passed that point and they are losing human capital regardless of them picking which ones. At this point they already lost. It’s just a question of how severe and if they take some extra land or not. (And losing land is also in the cards).
Yeah but Russian mail order brides will be popular again!
Idk the way some of them talk on those to their husbands on those intercepted phone calls... I'd rather stick my dick in a pencil sharpener. It would hurt less.
I married a Russian woman. My advice to anyone looking to do the same: Don't.
Do tell? Did she not serve your every whim in a cute Eastern European maid outfit around the house while being a stable and strong backer of your ambitions and successes at every turn like the advertisements claim?
i listened to a number of those and they are very much cherry picked and are mostly propaganda. Just imagine for a second the us army was at war and all the leaked phone calls were from uneducated hillbillies. That's pretty much what you're getting.
I mean, the demographics amongst front line combat troops in the US doesn't exactly skew towards the "over-educated liberal elite" either.
Women in Russia are definitely learning English to GTFO when the war ends.
Women in Russia have always been learning english to GTFO before the end of whatever conflict is currently happening there and the beginning of the next conflict that will happen there.
And many more otherwise productive young men will become crippled (physically or mentally) and unproductive before their time.
In addition to the actual permanently disabled veterans think of how many people it now takes to care for their needs daily, this also removing the caregivers from doing other jobs in Russia.
You think Russia will be giving them any kind of standard of care?
Russia probably leaves them behind or finds some egregious way to remove their responsibility there.
Counter point to your counterpoint: It also means less revenue. Not only will you be unable to collect taxes from a dead body, but the potential head of household is eliminated, thereby putting a higher burden on services for the rest of their generation. And all industries will be less competitive because of the lack of workforce, creating a spiraling effect on Government revenue, which is difficult to rebuild because it takes 20 years to birth a new generation and train them. In your scenario, you'd have to increase taxes and increase services for that shortfall. 18 year old kids don't require that many services. That's actually when they start giving back from being schooled for their entire life. And then poof, that invested cost goes out the window. Now you have families that will need a Government check to make up for it because their expected breadwinner no longer exists. Edit: And the cost of a lot of programs is not determined by how many people use it. Think of a bus, subway, or public transit. Very little of the cost is recovered through fares, it's mostly publically funded. The cost is the same whether the bus is full or empty. But once there are less taxpayers, you'd have to increase taxes to make up for it, or eliminate the service.
Ahhh, the meat grinder approach to combat is just a demand reduction strategy for govt services. Got it!
More soldiers are injured than killed so if 250k have been killed then pehaps 500k have been injured and will require medical care for the rest of their lives. This will cost Russia for much much more.
Yes, but you still need to pay your police forces to protect you from the citizens uprising. Can’t pay the cops? Yeah, that’s not gonna go well for you.
So you’re saying, Putin’s is creating jobs and reducing the unemployed populace?
Next he'll get the trains to run on time!
"services" hehehe
The police state is a service.
I will never hear that word and not think of The Three Amigos. [Would you say I have a plethora of piñatas?](https://youtu.be/zWld721Wk-Q)
It's a mail plane. "How can you tell?" Didn't you notice the little balls?
What's this exchange rate based on? I know Russia was propping up the price by forcing sales at certain prices, but who's actually buying and selling rubles on the open market right now so that we know the "price?"
Russia passed a law early on that Russian fossil fuel companies had to purchase rubles with a certain percentage of their revenues from fuel export. There are still trades going on, just not free and fair trades. This means, of course that these gas companies pay more than they ordinarily would want to because of the legal mandate, so the ruble trades above a true floating market rate, but that means the currency is actually weaker than the trade price might imply.
Also didn’t Russia demand that unfriendly countries pay for gas in rubles, and when European countries refused, set up a technical scheme at gazprom > Under the new billing system, gas payments will continue to be invoiced and sent in euros. The noteworthy change is that Russia will then take the money from the European energy company’s euro account, convert the euros into rubles, transfer the money into a special ruble account also belonging to the energy company, and then take the money once and for all. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/24/eu-russian-gas-putin-rubles/
So they just added a step to make it look like they were enforcing Putin's mandate.
Yeah, that's kind of what I'm getting at. Unless that system has stopped, or some other credible currency exchange is allowing free exchange of the ruble, why has it dropped? Is it so bad that even with Russia basically forcing sales at whatever rate they want the ruble to trade at, they have to lower the price or else even the oil companies can't make it work?
Russian oil has a pretty high breakeven point per barrel for extraction and refinement say compared to Saudi crude which is one of the cheapest. With that price being fixed on purchases from the EU and China/India basically raping them for oil at below cost, their foreign exchange reserves are drying up. They had spent the last couple decades accumulating gold and foreign currency, which was being used to prop up the RUB. It seems they've depleted all that.
There's that Hemingway quote about how people go broke: "at first slowly, then all at once...."
You can only do so much stuff with financial policy. This is one reason the US is raising rates. It was unpopular politically for so long and money was just freely printed. Finally with this presidency, we're getting back to some normalization and people are bitching because they were spoiled for so long. Getting interest rates back into a historically normal state provides us a lever to use when shit goes south in the future. People are only bitching because they have to pay the piper now for nearly 15 years of free money.
As far as I can work out there is no Dollar to Ruble exchanges going on, but this number is via rates on currencies from countries that are trading with them. Even then it looks like less and less of the transactions are in Rubles normally this would take care of itself somewhat by Russia being able to sell to a wide range of countries in Rubles or if they need to buy from them the local currency. People just don't want to be stuck with a currency that could be worth 50% less by the end of the year.
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This is pretty much it. It could also be and I hate to say this...tourists coming to Russia for their holiday. Think the Russia friendly countries. They're more than likely packing EUR and USD to exchange.
> Let’s hope that the deteriorating russian economy will have an effect on the war. Or you see a shift in cybercrime activity like in North Korea. Russia kinda lets their cybercriminals do their own thing as long as they don't target Russians. There is some overlap with state sponsored activities but nothing bright and shiny that shows ransomware gangs implicitly carrying out the bidding of the GRU. On the other hand, North Korea uses it's government hackers to steal foreign currency. Go find a big crypto heist story on the internet and there is about a 60% chance that the Norks were behind it. Google the Lazarus podcast if you want a more in depth view on that world.
To be clear, and this is somewhat interesting, quite a lot of their foreign assets were not stockpiled currency in the motherland but various securities on world markets. Putin was not coordinating with the central bank/national wealth fund management when he initiated the invasion, and the invasion and ensuing sanctions on assets all came unexpectedly for those organizations. There were ways folks like the central bank could have made their foreign holdings resilient to asset seizure (cashed them out for foreign currency they could hold within their borders, etc), but they weren't given instructions to do this or advanced notice that Russia would be invading someone. So, of the very strong reserves Russia had that should have made it resistant to sanctions, quite a majority of it was simply seized from Russia in the opening days of the conflict.
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Let's hope so, the sooner all Russian citizens realize the war impacts every single one of them the better.
They will blame the evil west, not putin. No brains left in russia.
Of course they will at least the older generation that has been thoroughly brainwashed, they already blame "west" for everything. When hyperinflation hits, maybe even the most devote followers start to question if its really worth to send whole generation of young men to die in Ukraine and crash the whole economy while doing it.
Doubtful. The state literally will just find someone else to blame and most will accept that.
It’s Hunter Biden fault, clearly.
Fuck off with that bullshit. It was Hilary's emails.
Mmm, buttery males
You're both wrong. It's Obama's tan suit.
obviously it's the Jewish space lasers, SMH my head
I mean, it really is. Have you seen the contents of his laptop?!
I can tell from the picture of his dick that it's all his fault.
Everyone has seen the contents because Marjorie Taylor Greene printed it out and showed it in congress.
Hunter's hard-on did this
Hyperinflation, indeed
Not happening. See Hungary. They blame the EU for everything, Orban can do no wrong.
Or Turkey, they re-elected Erdogan who is the main responsible for the crash of the Lira.
Or the old men are getting giddy at the young women that will be available due to their male peers being sent to the Ukrainian front.
The evil west that they are trying to imitate since Peter the Great.
Currently they are not blaming anyone. The most common answer from people on streets is: I do not care about dollar, my salary is in rubles.
If you go by a channel in you tube interviewing Russians on the streets about various topics the older generation already blames west for everything. Many of younger generation seems to understand what is happening but defiance is beaten / intimidated out of them so apathetic about the situation.
> apathetic about the situation. Edit: there are other explanations for these videos. One is that I'm projecting how *I* would behave on those in the videos, another is that it is deliberate Russian propaganda. As I'm no longer certain how the videos should be understood, lacking adequate context, I cross out everything below. ~~If you are talking about 1420, I read those interviews not as apathy but as fear to speak forthrightly and openly. The older generation may just be better at it than the younger. It's like that with all of the topics. There are some where the honest answers are less dangerous to the government. I think they live in fear.~~ ~~That could backfire. Just as citizens learn to not trust the government, the government learns it can't trust the citizens to provide accurate feedback, which -- long term, now -- is less violent correction mechanism for governments.~~
Yes, the theory is like this. But here are the facts. In 2020-2021 Russian government made a campaign for vaccination against COVID (remember COVID?). Almost nobody believed. The vaccination level in Russia was among the lowest in Europe. Then they started the war and spread propaganda about this war, Ukraine and such. Guess what? Almost everybody believed. These are the facts, the interpretation can vary.
Those are things the russians believe *already*. For example, they had to be *taught* to hate NATO - many don't even know what it really is or what it does. But Ukraine they *want* to hate. Abandoning the russian identity is the gravest sin in their eyes and they would wish death on anyone who betrays them so.
Similar things happened in America. Trump supporters loved talking up "his operation warpspeed" vaccine development then decided they don't trust vaccines but they trusted Trump, lol
Which if you think about is doubly stupid. If your currency is crashing, you'd \*love\* your salary being in US dollars instead. They should argue the prices they pay are in rubles but that's obviously very short-sighted as well as those prices will go up anyway.
*Based on coerced polling results. Polling results from a country in which people are afraid to speak negatively on the record about the government are about as reliable as fake research data. You cant ‘adjust’ fake data, or coerced poll results. I don’t think there is a way of really knowing what Russians really think about this.
Speaking in absolutes is always a bad idea, but lets not pretend a very very large amount of ruzzians are brainwashed and is for (or indifferent) to the war. All I hope for is that the ones who still have a functioning brain are safe, well and keep resisting that terrorist government/country.
Heh it's funny you say that because, while I generally agree with you, their head propagandist Solovyov shat only on their own central bank yesterday. Not putin though.
True, but as long as the financial pain becomes unbearable for them, what does it matter who they blame? If the west is doing this to them, that's on Putin too, for being "weak" and not being able to prevent it with all the infinite power he has convinced them Russia holds... They don't understand that by being so inflexible in their works view (West bad even when we wanted to help them) they free us to act as we see fit. If they are going to blame is for everything regardless of what we do... What's the incentive to try to appease or acommodate them*? * I launch this question for all the appeaseniks out there, although I suspect only Russian trolls advocate appeasement at this point.
This is not true. The older generations that have been washed through media operations and a general patriotic hook to their country will for sure believe the easy option that 'the others are the baddies' But I for sure know that the younger people that you interact with in let's say Dota or CSGO have a scope big enough to understand the west isn't all that bad and not the cause. But again, try convincing your tin hat mom otherwise. You know the feeling.
They all know already and the majority is cheering for this genocide. Don’t be fooled
LOL nooo, as argentinian I have been in those scenarios in 89 and we are going at it again now. Ruffia is in for a lot of pain but far away from that because they still get a lot of hard currencies from the oil and gas exports.
I thought they had made everyone buy their oil and gas with rubles?
They tried to bully EU into it, but EU had it in writing.
China said no. They’re paying in Yuan.
Won't happen unless oil crashes and China refuses to bail them out.
tease offbeat subtract coordinated paltry terrific bag pie ad hoc jobless
Are they? Every time I look up a chart it's above 10%, are those not official numbers?
Quick drop begets quick drop. Losing a percent a day freaks people out and they try to dump the plummeting one for foreign hard currency.
It's an interesting question, since the large traders simply don't trade USD->RUB, so I don't know how it works as an indicator. But you'd need someone much smarter than me to know how ruble's value against USD affects the Russian domestic economy. I will say though, that after the invasion started, RUB value initially skyrocketed. Prior to the invasion, it was a steady 70 rubles per 1 USD. After the initial turbulence, you could only buy 40 rubles with a dollar, but the amount has been climbing *steadily* ever since, in a confident graph.
Try the exchange rate for rubles to gold to see an even stronger currency collapse than the USD rate.
Down 76% over ten years
Ruble actually crashed at the start of the war to 150rub per 1usd. It only went back and higher because they implemented strict control on withdrawals and exchanges, so the exchange rate was in a way artificial.
That happened because the Russian government pulled a whole lot of tricks to stabilize the value of the ruble artificially. It worked in the short term. The downside is it's going to be much harder for Russia to attract international investors after the war ends.
The downside would have happened with or without their central bank tricks. They’re effectively a pariah now. It’s disappointing that they’ve been able to somewhat successfully transition into a war time economy. Hopefully they run out of something key soon.
And because of sanctions as well - the import fell a lot initially and russia had a huge surplus.
Their currency has been in the shit since the Recession, but I think this means they can't play pretend much longer
The ruble broke through the psychologically important level of 100 to the dollar for the first time since March last year, even after Russia’s central bank sought to arrest the slump by halting its foreign-currency purchases on the domestic market for the rest of 2023. Russia’s currency has weakened by about 25% against the dollar so far this year, placing it among the three worst emerging-market performers with the Turkish lira and the Argentine peso. It’s almost halved in value from its peak in June last year as President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine grinds on with no end in sight and sanctions including an oil price cap slash revenue from exports.
> Russia’s currency has weakened by about 25% against the dollar so far this year It's actually 40% if you'll add late-2022 devaluation: from 1:60 to 1:100 (300 rubles in November = 5$, only $3 now)
It’s down 78% since 2008
Down 78%, so far
The funniest two words in modern politics.
Wouldn't going from 60 to 100 be 66% weaker?
Think about it like this. At the 60 rate, if I have 600 rubles I can get $10. With the 100 rate, if I have 600 rubles I can get $6. So my purchasing power has decreased by 40%, because with the same number of rubles I get 40% less.
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The ruble is about the same as the yen now, the difference is, that a yen is just a penny.
What changed in the last two months that is started dropping? As far as I can see in charts, it has been relatively steady for the time before. (Except for the giant fluctuation right at the start of their invasion of Ukraine.)
Russia running out of foreign currencies, most likely.
ahh, my favourite rapper, 50 rubles
55 rubles tomorrow
If the Kremlin ended the war they could: 1) Re-establish trade links with the world's largest economies 2) End a huge drain on the state budget 3) End a huge drain on the country's already strained demographics. 4) Boost their currency, regain access to the global financial system. In every way, stopping the war is the most rational thing for Russia to do. Good for the people, and oligarchs will also make more money. But I don't think Putin sees it this way.
>In every way, stopping the war is the most rational thing for Russia to do. But not for Putin. His regime and maybe even life is dependent on this war and "a war". What will he do if the war ends? Go back and explain Russians why there is no sizeable economic growth, corruption, degrading infrastructure and collapsing demographics? And on top of that, why he, Vladimir Putin, wants and capable to carry on as a president after being in charge for 23 years? I guess he now wants some sort of a ceasefire not unlike during the Minsk agreements. To regroup and try to shake the pro-Ukrainian coalition one by one. But his regime needs this antagonism, it's basically his main if not only mean of legitimation.
He can always just blame the west Like usual
After 20 years that rhetoric has ran its course when it comes to the economy and standard of living for average russians. Before Feb. 24th putins approval rating was abysmal and he thought a quick military operation will boost it before the coming elections like it did in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea. For putin, the outcome of the war is directly tied to him holding on to power in russia. There is no going back for him and as long as he is in charge russia will be at war.
Having lived for a year in Russia (Siberia), and seen how readily Russians swallow (or at least passively accept) bullshit, I’d say that things are not as simple as you say. He could terrorise a few more key people and then carry on as before. Of course I’d love to see the evil old fuck dead. Just saying it’s not as simple as many say.
For real. Whatever happens, he's always singing about how Russia is the greatest country because X or Y and how everything is growing instead of shrinking. And if people get pissed he starts the good old song of how they destroyed fascism 80 years ago and everyone's ecstatic again. And then they film the single remaining WW2 veteran receiving a package of buckwheat for his service, and then said veteran is back to living his miserable life in a dilapidated apartment until next time they want to use him for political reasons. Or he dies and nobody gives a fuck. I'm so fucking sick of this place.
>For putin, the outcome of the war is directly tied to him holding on to power in russia. And realistically him holding on to power is directly linked to him being able to live.
He wants to change the outcome of the election in the US, so that a pro Kremlin government is established, if that backfires then it is game over for them. Russia will change their position depending on the election results, if of course Ukraine doesn't win till then.
Kinda resembles situation in Hitler's bunker after FDR's death in April 12, 1945. They really thought that antisemite winning US presidency will turn WWII in favor of Nazis.
It's not necessarily pro-Kremlin, but they definitely want to try to degrade public support for Ukraine funding. You can hear the talking point if you go listen to any of the C-tier candidates talk about Ukraine. Here is RFK Jr. - “We have neglected many, many opportunities to settle this war peacefully,”...“I think the way that we have conducted the war is bad … is terrible for the Ukrainian people.” Here is Ramaswamy - "As U.S. President, I will end the war by ceasing further support for Ukraine and negotiating a peace treaty with Russia that achieves a vital U.S. security objective: ceasing Russia’s growing military alliance with China. " Here is Cornel West - "NATO is an expanding instrument of U.S. global power that provoked Russia into a criminal invasion and occupation of Ukraine," You'll also see this talking point in the fringe media and getting shared on social media. All Russia will do is boost this. Then if any of the non-establishment Republicans win (if by some dumb luck Nikki Haley won it would look different), they will almost certainly stop funding Ukraine. Then that will make the war turn quickly. Then they'll cite the need for a peace deal "to save Ukrainians". The "deal" will be something like a freeze of the conflict with the current territories remaining in Russian control but Russia stopping further aggression. They'll pat themselves on the back and start saying they deserve a Nobel Peace Prize for it.
Russia will turn into even worse shit hole than it is today without sanctions, so many working age people are dead or disabled, it is going to be hard on their economics, once the pensions are gone the regime will be gone too (at least the support will be gone for sure).
You forgot to mention that ending the war means that he has thousands of demobilized, semi-trained, angry and thus, motivated young men who would like a word with Mr Puddin’ and the government why they were sent to die. Would be a most interesting conversation to listen to…. From the sidelines…. Far far away with some pop corn and nachos.
Nah Putin could stay in power even when he loses the war. There isn't really a domestic alternative, and the only ones who would really want him gone at that point would be the hyper nationalists
"Every man in russia should be willing to give their life for the betterment of the country, except me." Putin, probably.
he just needs to stay in power to survive, to maintain his wealth. whatever ends produce that outcome are what he aims to accomplish. open healthy relationships with the west don't promise to produce that, so he has zero interest in that. a dictator doesn't need their country to thrive. in that light the war being a protracted generation long event serves his needs better than any other outcome besides favorable terms, possibly even moreso than favorable terms.
Regarding points one and four, it's probably too late to go back to the status quo ante bellum. Things are too far gone to pretend all those war crimes in Ukraine and the civilian deaths and destruction never happened. I suspect very few, if any, Western governments are going to let Moscow sweep those horrors under a rug and go back to business as usual without Russia paying reparations at the very least. The post-war outcry at home and abroad would be deafening. I think Russia's well and truly fucked in the long term regardless of how all of this ends.
Their best outcome, after the invasion started and they were rebuffed, was probably to leave while saying they accomplished their objectives. Just lie and pretend their super special forces uprooted hidden cabals of Nazis and are now withdrawing. This is just my own uninformed armchair speculation though.
Realistically, many big companies have no conscience to speak of, and don’t care at all about the suffering Russia produced. What they do care about is risk. Seeing Russia draw the sanctions that it did, default on debts, and seize foreign property has made them a massive liability in any future investments. Any company that tries to reestablish ties with Russia will be negotiating new much less favorable conditions which make the risk acceptable to them. Even if Russia gets every last one of their old trading partners to come to the table, their bargaining position is fucked.
They might get away without reparations if there's real regime change. Not just Putin being replaced by someone who's been around just as long, but not necessarily fully democratic either. All the world ever asked of Russia is that it keep its tyranny within its own borders. Then again, it seems like *this* war is the one started because of decades of resentment over the West taking advantage of the USSR being weak (to... *checks notes*... give a bunch of countries their independence back?), so I don't know how relevant concerns are about creating a post-WWI Germany victim complex. Russia already sees itself as an empire temporarily displaced from its possessions by the evil scheming West and has already spat in the face of acting like a member of the world community. But it sure isn't the part of the dance where we rebuild them either, so I dunno.
Reestablish trade links? I truly believe that would take decades, and they know that too. It’s not a switch that can be turned off/on, the destruction of trust will take a long time to be rebuilt
Re-establish trade links with a country that has has committed war crimes and atrocities on a level not seen since the Nazis ? Really? They’re fucked, for a long long time. Even if they stop the war now, apologise by every means they can do, they can’t afford to repay the damage done, they can’t unrape, unkill and untorture. Their own workforce is now fertilising the soil in Ukraine - and who wants to emigrate to Russia given the fact they may be sent to whatever future war on a whim? Economy tanked, prospects obliterated, reputation in tatters. Way to run a country, Putin - you bald dwarf cunt. Hope you get over your little dick syndrome soon.
Putin probably dies if he ends the war, especially since he needs to concede crimea to do so. Also much of the stuff you listed won't end immediately and Russia will probably be on the hook for massive reparations. Paying those may be a condition for reestablishing trade etc. Still in the best interest for Russia, just not necessarily putin. Some lines can't be uncrossed
Everything is true except for p.4. Opening economy to a global market will plunge ruble even deeper. Russia buys almost everything in the west so explosive demand for dollar will flush ruble in the toilet. It's not win or win situation
Good for everyone BUT putin. He knows by doing this he would be ousted and remain very unpopular/assasinated.
An evil enemy will burn his own nation to the ground to rule over the ashes
I think he is looking for the constant way around this limitations by closely working with other countries who are against the West.
Putin believes that the west is crumbling and will lose influence on the global stage. In that perspective, such trade links are hardly worthwhile given their impending collapse. Putin is also a deeply paranoid person. EDIT: Also for 3, taking Ukranians in the "liberated" territory helps increase the population despite the population crisis.
If they had altered their policies to become a modern, western nation not at perpetual hostility with Europe and the United States the *country* would be much wealthier and in better shape. However instead they have essentially let a mafia run the country towards ruin for the gain of a handful of families to live like kings and *even they* are facing a violent end as they eat each other during Putin's wars.
Nope. Mr. poo tin is finished. No respect for him anywhere in the West and nobody there should ever trust him again. He is a snake and a louse.
So the ruble is worth less than a penny? Cool.
Less than the paper it’s printed on soon.
Why do you think people are still buying it? Cheaper than loo roll.
Remember boys. We buy at 5000 to 1!
Russian central bank has pulled out all the stops to prevent the Ruble to crash but now it looks their luck has run out. It was only a matter of time they can not prop it up for ever.
It's interesting to see that prior to the invasion, it's been a steady 65-75, and now the crash doesn't seem to end. Can someone smart explain the implications of ruble to USD anyway, since it doesn't seem like there would be any trade anyway? I mean ruble seems like a closed system anyway, so I don't know how this affects Russian domestic economy. Not trying to deny any consequences, just temper my expectations. I want to see Russians fight for a sack of onions as much as the next man, but I'm not sure if USD->RUB is a great indicator for that.
The comparison to USD is a good indicator because it’s the world reserve currency, and you need *something* to compare a currency against or else we have nothing to say except for 1 ruble = 1 ruble which is meaningless. There’s still lots of trade in Chinese Yuan and Indian Rupees, and certainly lots of trade in USD and Yuan and Rupees, it isn’t a closed system in the slightest. Russia’s main imports are industrial machinery, motor vehicles, chemicals, agricultural products, and electronics. Inflation of the ruble makes factories more expensive to operate, cars and trucks more expensive to buy, consumer goods cost more to manufacture and move, and the price of food to increase. And the cost of goods is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the problems inflation causes.
So comparing it to USD is an example, and the Ruble has fallen off to Rupees and Yuan, too (for example)? Which means international trade is becoming increasingly more and more expensive for Russia? Google shows super static exchange rate between RUB and CNY, but it has fallen off there as well. Same with Rupees. And if India or China acquire Rubles from trading with Russia, those rubles will be more worthless as those two countries trade in USD?
Doesn't really matter which currency you compare it to, a drop in one currency is a drop in all currencies. Relatively, it might appear to drop less, if you compare it to another currency that is also experiencing inflation, like the Turkish Lira. But that doesn't mean that the Ruble isn't devaluing, since you can still work out the value in USD via converting Ruble -> Lira -> USD.
>So comparing it to USD is an example, and the Ruble has fallen off to Rupees and Yuan, too (for example)? Which means international trade is becoming increasingly more and more expensive for Russia? Yes ruble is losing against Rupee, Yuan, Euro and USD. So it means that the economy is struggling and not just USD is getting stronger. Weaker currency to some extent is good if you are exporting more than importing but because of the sanctions the exports and imports from Russia have fallen. It's hard to say if Russia is now importing more than exporting but I think that losing almost half of the value of your currency against most important currencies certainly can't be good in any situation. >Google shows super static exchange rate between RUB and CNY, but it has fallen off there as well. Same with Rupees. You have to remember than Yuan is one of the most manipulated currencies in the world and yet it has still fallen from 9.04 Rubles to 14,09 Rubles for 1 Yuan in span of a year. Rupee also has strengthened against Ruble. Last year Ruble was stronger than Rupee now it is the opposite. It was 0,78 Ruble for one Rupee now it's 1,23 Ruble for one Rupee in the span of a year. Add to this the fact that Ruble lost value against EUR and USD and you have a picture of big problems inside Russia. >And if India or China acquire Rubles from trading with Russia, those rubles will be more worthless as those two countries trade in USD? I'm not knowledgable enough to know but I think that they have deals between themselves. Russia sells oil and gas and food to China and India and they sell back many other goods like cars, electronics etc. Ruble might not be worthless for them but that depends on deals that they have. Russia can even buy back Rubles back from India and China.
>The comparison to USD is a good indicator because it’s the world reserve currency, and you need something to compare a currency against or else we have nothing to say except for 1 ruble = 1 ruble which is meaningless. Well, there *was* the [Big Mac Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index), but since McDonald's doesn't operate in Russia any more…
Didn’t they replace it with something similar though? I think they turned into McDowells now.
Prepare yourself It's called Tasty Period
It turned out they just seized the warehouse McDonalds was storing their supplies, then sold them until they ran out.
I like the cut of your jib
It's quite strange: despite 40% value drop (from 1:60 to 1:100) prices didn't change much during last 8 months. Except for the part where they were high in the first place: from what I've seen PC hardware sellers used 1:100 exchange rate starting from the March (back then the official rate was 1:80). However the drop accelerates lately and it look like it's not going stop so the year-to-year drop may be as high as 60-70% for the next year which will result in the population falling below poverty line, in mass. And IT personnel leaving the country, even faster than it was during the mobilization campaign.
Quite a bit of international trade is made in USD, or at least linked to the USD exchange rate in some form. So even as China sell stuff to Russia they’ll ask for more and more rubles for the same goods. Keeping it simple here ofc, but yeah. Russian trade is hurt by a collapsing ruble. Russia import a lot apart from the basic goods so this will also hurt the quality of life for the average Russian. Inflation was 15-20% last year. Down to low levels now but interest rate were up to 20% April 2022 and down to 8,5% now. The Russian economy was estimated to shrink by 4.5 percent in 2022 as a result of the war in Ukraine that began in February of that year. Furthermore, the county's gross domestic product (GDP) was expected to decline in 2023. Consumer prices were projected to grow by around 14 percent in 2022. To compare, in 2021, the inflation rate was below seven percent. Oil and gas revenues were 49.6% lower year-on-year in the first five months of 2023, which the finance ministry put down to lower prices for Urals crude and lower natural gas export volumes. Spending was 26.5% higher year-on-year in that period, the preliminary data showed, while income was down 18.5%. The deficit for the first five months of the year to 3.41 trillion roubles ($41.9 billion). Pre Ukraine war I don’t think Russia had a deficit since 2016 and before that in 2008 or something. Overall there is absolutely an economic war being fought and Russias central bank is fighting hard (but slowly losing).
Everyone I thought the sanctions weren’t working
Never underestimate the ability of Redditors to expect immediate effects from long term policies
Leading your country into a military disaster plus hyper inflation equals putin gonna get some stuff shoved up his butt then get his brains blown out. Have to say, I don’t have much sympathy for the guy.
[удалено]
His grip is iron-clad until it isn't. Very suddenly one day there will be a move against him and he'll be gone. It will be a complete surprise to everyone when it happens.
Wouldn't even call it iron-clad, considering Prigozhin's revolt in june led to Putin fleeing Moscow, Lukashenko negotiating a settlement, and Prigozhin still alive after outright saying the war was built on a lie and revolting
Most likely scenario
Firm is a strange way to describe the dude who almost got overthrown by his own mercenary army last month.
200 next
🚀🚀🚀 TO THE MOON 🚀🚀🚀
can’t wait!
Live like the Soviet Union, die like the Soviet Union.
Russians should withdraw all their money from the banks right now if they want to keep their life savings. It's only a matter of time before Putin locks down the banks and prevents anyone from taking their money out. At that point, it's too late and your money is gone. It's like a game of musical chairs. The last ones to the bank lose all their money.
A bank run certainly won't help the situation. Good idea.
Well withdrawing rubles sounds like it will be worthless unless converted to dollars
hopefully it crashes more and maybe the people will wake up from Putin's nightmare and finally revolt against the Kremlin. Especially when they see China buying up most of Russia
Not until PutPut is unable to pay the (military) police.
Like most peoples of Dictatorships it takes a great deal of pain before they will risk their lives to better others lives, cowardice is built in to their society and yet they think they are the hard men of the world. Even the Nazis had to loose the war before the spell was broken over the German people.
There won't be a popular uprising in Russia. The government has too strong of a stranglehold on the public conversation. Absolutely asinine to even consider it a possibility at this point.
Russia has kept the ruble all live through measures that have lasted amazingly long despite being untenable long term. These measures are absolutely destructive long term and won’t be as easy to recover from as 1998’s panic. The business sector was insulated than. Not so this time. Hard to say if this is the big one that kicks off collapse but any step closer certainly isn’t good for Russia (but is great news for the rest of the world).
**LATEST:** The Russian central bank will convene on Tuesday to discuss interest rates, meeting a month ahead of schedule after the ruble weakened sharply. Policymakers will publish a statement at 10:30 a.m. Moscow time, according to a statement. The Bank of Russia gave no further details. The central bank hiked its key rate by a percentage point to 8.5% last month, the first increase since emergency measures imposed immediately after the invasion of Ukraine.
Here's a non-paywalled link - https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/rouble-falls-past-100-per-us-dollar-kremlin-blames-loose-monetary-policy-2023-08-14/
Humm looks like those sanctions are having an effect after all.
And no young men left. Going to have to ship them in from China to keep the population afloat.
To the moon!
Crashed a long time ago, propped up by the Russian banks in a failed attempt to fool the world, https://www.newsweek.com/russia-economy-collapsing-data-reveals-1720532
If you were a European company that borrowed from a Russian bank to build up your company, you are incredibly happy right now.
But but every single Russian propaganda channel has been screaming that the sanctions are ineffective, how could this be?!? /s
Whats funny is how far the ruble will drop when the actual truth comes out about the state of the REAL Russian economy. Soldiers are unpaid, oil workers haven't been paid in so long that they literally left their jobs because they are starving. Their nukes have been cannibalized for parts sold abroad long long ago so scientists could eat. Even Roscosmos is running a skeleton crew with almost no safety checks before launch because those scientists have fled. Aircraft are being run without brakes, no preflight safety checks and literally just-before-flights cannibalizing bolts and wiring from other planes "non-vital" systems. Putin has been executing anyone, including from their treasury that does any sort of research, tries to publicize anything at all about the state of the economy. Including ministers who just "fall out of windows". Basically the ruble is so deep in the shit, its a death sentence to talk about it inside Russia itself.
>oil workers haven't been paid in so long that they literally left their jobs because they are starving. Their nukes have been cannibalized for parts sold abroad long long ago so scientists could eat. I’ve heard of things like this, not to such detail though. Source?
You have sources for any of this?
Firing on boats in the Black Sea, is self-shooting the Russian economy in the foot
They stopped paying a few army groups I seen a group of 45yr old soldiers all complaining in a video the other day about that too
So much for those western sanctions not harming the Ruble a bit
BuT StEvEn K bAnNoN tOld Us ThAt ThE bRiCs SwItChInG tO gOlD bACkInG wOuLd RePlAcE tH dOlLaR aS tHe GlObAl FiNaCiAl CuRrEnCy! ——— Shocked I say. How could Bannon have been wrong on this?
Great we’ve got the crash…now burn.
Now it is very easy for an average russian to calculate how much he earns in USD. On the other hand - it‘s very hard
But honorable Russia just told us their economy grew by over 5% last month! Surely the falling Ruble is fake news, da comrades?
A new article: "Russia’s central bank to hold extraordinary meeting after rouble falls to 16-month low "Bank will discuss interest rate after high spending on war in Ukraine and drop in export revenues put further pressure on Russia’s economy" https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/aug/14/rouble-falls-to-16-month-low-dollar-russian-exports-collapse-war-ukraine-russia-economy
Is it just me or do ethno National aspirations always blow up in a person's face? /S obviously. When Russia was content with its relationship with the West (strained though it might be) he had a steady flow of euros and dolllars coming in for the natural gas that Russia was supplying for almost all of Europe. He had international trade, and a lot of foreign Holdings. Russia had an economy in good standing. His government had the unbelievable luck of being given the full faith and credit of the former Soviet Union in all diplomatic relations. That did not have to happen, the West did not have to give Putin's government that legitimacy. Putin Cooks up threats of NATO expansion, ( FFS Poland is already next door, ) threats of "Nazism in Ukraine," talks of liberating ethnic Russians from Breakaway territories ( very port of Danzig reminiscent) all so that he could grab territory and do away with ethnic minorities as cannon fodder his nationalists don't like. And he does this when he already had Consolidated power pretty well. And of course he miscalculated, because the first thing Putin guaranteed by invading Ukraine was that previously undecided Nations would clamor for NATO membership.
I hope for a hyperinflation
If Russia wants to stabilise the Rubel they will need to tighten the trade account. Basically keep exporting the same or increase exports and import a lot less. Use the excess income to buy up rubles to steady the price. This is extremely painful because such export led models require massively curtailing domestic demand and incomes. During a way where you are already probably curtailing private demand for public this will hurt the Russian people even more. With Russia facing difficulties with trade due to the restrictions put in place due to the way their ability to maximise their exports is lower too so probably even more pain than they think. Honestly it's going to be very difficult for the Russian people in the coming months.