Posted on 06/01/2023 11:05:02 AM PDT by dennisw
Sanctions against Russia are the success story of the advanced democracies. Vladimir Putin’s ability to wage military war against Ukraine, geo-ideological war against the liberal world, is being ground down systematically with each month.
Earnings from Russia’s oil and gas exports fell 52pc over the first four months of this year, and hydrocarbon rent is what funds two-fifths of the Kremlin’s budget.
Last year, Putin had no difficulty financing his invasion from the windfall gains of the energy price spike, caused in large part by his own actions. He raise pensions by 10pc and scatter enough money to shield Russia’s people from the hardship of the war. This year he will have to choose between guns and butter.
It was never going to be easy to blockade the world’s largest country, central to the international supply of grains, fertilisers, energy, and the gamut of critical commodities. Nor was it ever going to be possible to corral the global South without provoking a backlash and splitting the world into two camps.
Yet so far, the democracies have navigated this war with skill. I hesitate to talk of the “West” in this context because that plays to Xi-Putin propaganda. The Eastern democracies of Japan, Korea, and Taiwan are also participating in the soft blockade.
Europe has survived the loss of Putin’s gas in a better shape than most could have imagined a year ago. Prices collapsed to €25 MWh from a peak of €304 last August. They are not far above the median price of the last decade. The January TTF contract is €43.
We no longer have to fear a second and even more painful energy shock this winter. Gas storage tanks are already 75pc full in Germany and 74pc in Italy, at least 20 points higher than the seasonal norm.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Vlad really stepped in it this time!
It’s all over for him now!
LOL and Putin has cancer. You freaks never give up.
Any reasonable person would observe that Russia is on the brink of disaster both militarily and economically. Oh I left out politically they have warring warlords threatening to bring down the government or to kill each other every day.
Talk about freaks.
Boom
As long as oil and natural gas prices are down so is Vlad. Oil hit $100 under a weak Obama and he invaded Crimea, oil hits $100 under a weak Biden and he invaded Ukraine. Drop oil even further with an energy independent USA and Putin is kaput after wasting so much blood and treasure on a failed land grab.
Any reasonable person would observe that without the 150+ billion US dollars the Ukraine proxy war would have lasted five minutes.
Are you ready to admit this is an illegal US war on Russia?
Either Putin is going to die from Cancer, be overthrown by the Wagner Group, get assassinated by his inner circle or he’s run out of high tech material to wage war, yet they keep on fighting
These freaks keep thinking surely this time he’s finished
No, you don't understand, its actually russian military brilliance to eschew modern blitzkrieg tactics and revert to WW1 style trench warfare.
Darth Putin @DarthPutinKGB ·
Day 463 of my 3 day war. I lost 100,000 casualties to capture a town with a pre war population of 74,000.
I remain a master strategist.
For as long as Biden is POTUS that will never happen
This is also the last war the US will be able to afford.
This is also the last war the US will be able to afford.
These stories are the ultimate case of projection.
30th or 40th time I’ve heard this... must be true by now. /s
For all the haters, he's one of the good guys. Deal with it.
This is economics not cancer. The taxes on oil were the largest part of the Russian government's budget. Sanctions on oil have cost the Kremlin 20% of its tax revenues in one year. The goal of the sanctions is to drive up Russia's costs, reduce their income, and minimize the economic shock to the rest of the world. So far it is working.
When the USSR existed, all there other states were half the USSR's population and economic production. That ended 30 years ago. Russia is fighting a major war, on 1/2 the population, economic and production capacity of when it was the USSR. They are increasing military production, so are Ukraine's allies, and what the US and others have given Ukraine has severely depleted the Russian military.
The political and economic side of the war is to drive down the Russian economy so they can no longer afford to fight the war. That is harder to see and understand than counting destroyed equipment or looking at lines on maps. By the end of the year, Putin will have hard choices to make about continuing or ending the war and there is nothing he can do about it.
—”Putin has cancer. “
And Putin will control all of Ukraine in three days!
He’s out of ammo AGAIN????
The economics have never favored Russia for a long drawn out conflict and we are beginning to see that despite many who want to claim that Russia is doing better than ever. It is simply not possible. They are a nation highly dependent upon exports with very high recovery and transportation costs (especially to Asia).
However, there is another possibility and it is one that few want to think about or discuss. It is not likely that Putin will survive “defeat” in the Ukraine so if it comes down to his survival (he will say the Russian Federation, but it is really him) he may use tactical nukes. I see a lot of “foreign policy wonks” (aka Ivy-league idiots) saying that he would never do this, but anyone who understands the politics of Russia and the simmering resentment towards the corrupt oligarchs should know that Putin’s survival is at stake as well as his legacy.
This possibility is why the West should be pushing for a peaceful resolution instead of increasing the size of NATO. There is NOTHING about this conflict that has made our nation safer and more secure but I don’t see an acceptable path for all sides to resolve it so the tragic loss of life will continue.
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