The good news for Ukraine supporters just keeps coming. I will view your link about the fuel fires after writing this comment.
I just spent 40 minutes viewing the link below (total run time 1 hour 14 minutes). Forty minutes because Constantine, the narrator moved to answering comments from viewers at this point. His English was good, so no written info. He said his program was called “Patron” but I don’t know the actual spelling. The topic was estimates of the cost to the people of Kursk and Russia caused by the Ukraine invasion and occupation of Kursk. He also included estimates for costs in Bolgorod.
He estimates the total Russian loss of population caused by this “war” is around 3,000,000 people, mostly the educated and professional population. He described his experiences fleeing to Tashkent, where 40,000 Russians in a city of 5 million resulted in desperate searches for a roof to live under and major inflation. He estimates the total exodus from Kursk and Bolgorod to be about 1/4 million (Kursk with 1 million population). This will cause substantial problems in Russia for inflation of food and real estate. Costs to buy housing beyond the war zone are around $40,000 while people desperate to sell homes in Kursk are getting $15,000.
He points out both Oblasts have the famous rich, black soil which makes for major harvests of wheat, sunflowers, and corn. There are also large numbers of pigs, and cows (milk). There will be no harvests, and what happens to the animals? Significant food inflation to be expected in Russia, on top of the housing cost increases. He also mentions iron, and nuclear power as other economic loses or threatened loses. The loss in harvests he estimates as around 1 million metric tons, and since I was not taking notes, I don’t remember his estimated costs. I hope I have correctly remembered the other figures I quoted, but enjoy the link if you relish details. Constantine describes his search for specific information on his estimates of quantities, costs and loses to the people and businesses.
This video is the best effort I have seen to quantify the cost to Russia of this Ukrainian conquest. Even if Ukraine were to hurry back home rather soon, the overall cost would be great, but far greater if they stay a while. He points out that perhaps the greatest loss to Putin and Co. will be the information that 1/4 million unhappy refugees will be able to spread throughout the Russian countryside. No longer will the smooth, optimistic lies that “all is well in Russia” be the only source of information for the Russian people. Now I return to the link below to see what comments the listeners have over the remaining 34 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0aZ_kp6AKw
I went back to the video to check on the audience comments and answers portion. I did not find this as satisfying as the first part as there were comments to regular commenters and not necessarily questions to answer, and of course as a new viewer, the names had no meaning for me. On rereading comment #5573 I see I need to correct spelling of southern neighbor BElgorod.
I listened again to the first part of the program where Constantine went into some detail about why Russia’s economy is in so much trouble. Things like labor shift to war industry, international sanctions, etc. which most of us who have followed this war closely already know about. However, for someone only recently following this war some of this may be new and interesting info. After that he goes into great detail on how the Kursk invasion will make matters that much worse for Russia. He ended with a long Christian prayer.