Russia has burned through almost half of the liquid reserves in its national wealth fund as it bleeds money amid the war in Ukraine

The liquid assets in Russia's national wealth fund fell 44% from January 2022 to December 2023.

Total holdings in the fund tumbled 12% over the same period amid the war in Ukraine, per Bloomberg.

Liquid assets in the fund could last just another year or two if Russia's oil export price falls below $50 a barrel, per Bloomberg Economics.

“Russia has mobilized 40% of its ENTIRE national budget”

A few things:

1. Russia’s accounting practices are rather opaque. The Russians are also fond of deception. Meaning that this may be a number intended for public consumption partly to explain away shortages in the consumer sector. “We are on a war time economy!” is a handy excuse for why durable and non-durable goods and services are in short supply as opposed to admitting to impacts from Western sanctions.

2. Russia is notoriously corrupt. The war is presenting opportunities for graft and even if 40% of the budget is allocated to war production much of that will be stolen. Evidence of this is found in the ongoing inability of the Russian military to meet payroll, disability, and retirement obligations. Either the money is being stolen or refer to my point #1 and the money simply doesn’t exist to meet these obligations.

3. Is Russian military spending increased? Sure it has. But much of the money is being used on refurbishing old but salvageable equipment, vehicles, armor, ships, and aircraft. As of yet I have not heard or seen any reports of new Russian factories being built, new iron or coal mines for a renewed steel industry, or even evidence of new weapons factories being built. The focus would seem to be on refurbishing old Soviet gear for use in the war.

Kazan to USA-FRANCE: "This just another one of your lies.
The Russians went out of their way to prevent this war -- with the Minsk Accords, by coming to us with their secure concerns in 12/21 and by negotiating a peace deal in Turkey two years ago (that was killed by Boris Johnson)."

All of that kind of talk is total Russian propaganda lies, straight from the disinformation sewer pipes of the Kremlin's Ministry for Agitation and Propaganda.
The truth is, there were three separate Russian invasions of Ukraine, none of them justified morally or legally in any remote sense of the word "justified".

In February 2014, Russian military forces totaling circa 32,000 took over Crimea without any prior negotiations or serious justifications.
Russian units illegally invading Crimea in February 2014 included:
- 7th Air Assault Division (Novorossiysk)
- 3rd Spetsnaz Brigade (Tolyatti)
- 10th Spetsnaz Brigade (Krasnodar)
- 16th Spetsnaz Brigade (Tambov)
- 18th Motor Rifle Brigade (Grozny)
- 22nd Spetsnaz Brigade (Stepnoy)
- 31st Air Assault Brigade (Ulyanovsk)
- 291st Artillery Brigade (Troitskaya)
- 25th Spetsnaz Regiment (Stavropol)
- 45th Spetsnaz Regiment (Kubinka, Moscow region)
- 382nd Naval Infantry Battalion (Temryuk)
- 727th Naval Infantry Battalion (Astrakhan)
- Special Operations Forces Command (Prokhladny)
Some of these were dressed up as "little green men", but many others were in their official Russian uniforms.
Near Ukraine's Donbas by August 2014 Russians assembled 45,000 troops, of whom well over 1,000 were operating as a "stealth invasion" in the Donbas conflict zone.
Russian military units illegally in the Donbas by July 2014 included:
- 2nd Spetsnaz Brigade
- 10th Spetsnaz Brigade
- 45th Guards Independent Reconnaissance Regiment (Kubinka, Moscow Oblast)
- 173rd Separate Guards Reconnaissance Company, 106th Guards Tula Airborne Division (Tula)
- Reconnaissance Battalion, 9th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade (former 84th Separate Reconnaissance Battalion)
- Reconnaissance Battalion, 18th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade (formerly 18th Separate Reconnaissance Battalion)
Russia's 2014 invasions resulted in Minsk agreements which both sides accused the other of violating, and which Vlad the Invader used as part of his pretext for invasion in 2022, unilaterally declaring Minsk "no longer existed".
February 24, 2022, Vlad's full-scale invasion of Ukraine included circa 200,000 troops and was intended to be a matter of days or weeks before conquest of Kiev with subjugation of Ukraine.
Prior to Vlad's invasion there were no serious negotiations with Ukraine, only insane Russian demands which would strip Ukrainians of their sovereignty.
After the invasions, there were negotiations in Belarus and Turkey, which pro-Russians claim resulted in agreements later allegedly vetoed by Boris Johnson or "the Americans".
Nobody from Ukraine's government has ever confirmed that such an alleged agreement was reached.

Kazan: "Meanwhile, your glorious leader is doing everything he can to keep the war going, including pondering sending French troops into Ukraine."

From Ukrainians perspective, the war will not end until the last Russian soldier is withdrawn from Ukraine's recognized 2013 borders.

In the meantime, France's Pres. Macron has stepped up admirably to fill in the leadership gap left by our own dementia-reduced Pres. Biden.
If Macron is willing and able to send significant numbers of French military to support Ukraine's borders with, for examples, Moldova or Belarus, that could seriously help relieve some pressure on Ukrainians.

Thus will Vlad the Invader have accomplished the very thing he claimed to be preventing -- by strengthening NATO with the additions of Finland and Sweden, and bringing NATO forces into Ukraine.

Which invites the question of whether there was ever before a genius in the same class as Vlad the Invader ruling over the old Russian or Soviet Empires?

Given your knowledge of eastern European history, perhaps you can help clarify or confirm some thoughts about my own ancestry. Recently my son had his DNA tested and with this service also was given information about mother and father. I am a woman, and my mother’s parents left East Prussia around 1890 to come to the US. I have little information about my grandfather except that he was from Pozen/Posnan (currently Poland) and as a marine engineer the Prussian Navy was not too happy about the Kaiser’s goals.

Grandmother’s father a man named von xxxxx owned 1,000 acres in East Prussia (near Kerningsberg), but was forced to sell all the land except 20 acres and the buildings to buy expensive potatoes to fulfill Army contracts for 1871 war, because his potatoes were killed by blight. Shirer refers to “the impoverished Prussian petit nobility” in a book about Germany. My great grandfather was one of those, he gave up his title and took a court secretary job. I have been told his ancestors were “robber barons”, also that an ancestor was mayor of Kerningsberg. My son said my DNA appeared to be strong Baltic and German, with also significant Welsh/English (reflecting my father’s genes), but there was also 6 to 9% far, far Eastern DNA. So given that snapshot of DNA, I am wondering if the fact my grandmother’s ancestry was petit nobility, and there were various far Eastern conquerors, like Golden Hoard, Mongols, etc. What was the most likely source of my far Eastern DNA.

My mothers siblings and my cousins are fairly evenly divided between the dark ones and the blond ones. I am dark haired with hazel/brown-green eyes. My husband was mostly Scottish heritage, with red hair and light blue eyes, so I was surprised when both my sons were born with very dark brown eyes. My thought was that perhaps I had recessive dark brown far eastern/oriental eye genes, which came up dark brown with his very recessive light blue eyes. Then his mother told him he was 1/16th Canadian Cree Indian. So now I also wonder if the Asian dark eye gene could be recessive to the light blue/European eye. On the other hand I think my husband had a higher than usual amount of Neanderthal DNA given his hairy body, massive muscular build, early adult maturation (age13), explosive anger, and high pain tolerance. I don’t know if I have much Neanderthal DNA, but I do have the shoveling dent in my upper lateral incisors which can be indicative of them. Some day I hope to get my own DNA tested with a company that also does Neanderthal and maybe even Denisovan by the time I do it.

Any ideas you can come up with given the data at hand would be appreciated. Cheers, and belated happy Easter

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