Googles the Russian for "flashpoint" *

Cue however many White House correspondents, political journalists and 'murican "experts" ignoring actual US policy since Jan 2025, and writing about Trump swinging back to supporting Ukraine (he's not and never has).

Ignorance on my part, but still don't understand why Russian government debt was so cheap H2 2024 - H1 2025 relative to how much Russian banks were paying to attract deposits*. I understand the benefits to the Kremlin, but not the mechanics. All help gratefully received.

1/2 Being a cyclist this is alien to me, but not sure we can talk about a Russian fuel crisis yet. The avg. Russian drives 20,000km p.a., so 77km per working day in cars that in an IEA 2019 estimate, consume 8.3ls per 100km. More regions are introducing restrictions every day (now 22 out of 83 plus

"Authors who survive will have to write books on behalf of their fallen colleagues as well as for themselves. We will all have to work much harder to fill, at least partially, the jagged empty space gouged into Ukrainian culture by Russia’s bombs and missiles over the last three years’. A must read.

1/4 Folk are discussing Trump’s Ukraine minerals deal again, but leaving out what America originally sought to impose on Ukraine. They shouldn’t. The original deal would have left Ukraine - GDP of $191bn in 2024 - with a $500bn debt to repay the (massively over-valued) US aid Ukraine had already

Neat piece on the politics of military-technology and how it influences design, plus more long range missiles for Ukraine!

Russian interest rates remain high, but are no longer prohibitive with car loans, like market rate mortgages, seeing a recovery this year. The 16% YoY increase in the number of loans for new and 2nd hand cars seen May YTD, aligns with the 11% increase in new car sales over the same period. *

Iran turning the Strait of Hormuz into an actual protection racket couldn't be more Trumpy if they tried. In spirit and origin it truly is the Trump tax.

1/3 Having gone quiet for a few months, differentiated mortgage subsidies (cheaper mortgages for bigger families) are back on the Kremlin agenda. Subsidised mortgages put a floor beneath the mortgage market (and as a result housebuilding) when market rates rendered mortgages largely unaffordable

1/2 This; and also institutionally. It's difficult to imagine any US officer, Defense dept or State dept official advancing their career by detailing the lessons to learn from the Iran debacle, much better to celebrate its operational and tactical "excellence".

1/2 That I can still gas to a lassie I know in Yekaterinburg via Telegram informs my understanding of Russia's Telegram ban. Less anecdotally, despite multiple government steps to restrict access to it, Youtube remains the 5th most popular website in Russia. And despite Samsara then Moscow banning

1/3 Americans are unlikely to appreciate Elvira Nabiullina’s significance. She’s the Central Bank Chief who, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, spent years clearing the dreck out of Russia’s banking system, had the personal credibility needed to defy business and political opposition and set

One disadvantage of Biden era US aid was it came with multiple strings attached including enforced American "expertise". Compare/contrast Biden's White house pressing Ukraine in 2024 to halt drone strikes on Russian energy facilities, fearing massive retaliation and higher petrol prices, with now

But Biden era intelligence folk assured us every cut cable was an accident *

White House: Withhold the MOU leaving journalists discussing leaks we can plausibly deny/spin, and only eventually release a doc making the scale of the Iran clusterfuck less deniable, when the media has moved on to the next pretty shiny. It worked with Mueller it'll work with this Journalists: 👍

1/2 BIM every time a savvy commentator points out Russian inflation is being under-estimated, they're simultaneously claiming Russian monetary policy is looser/more accommodating than official figures suggest.

More interesting is the lack of attention Fox News is paying this. There's one wee story * 7 rows down their homepage, implying they're shielding their readers from this abomination and will move swiftly on. Heck they don't even tell folk Trump has shares in the company hosting the event.

Every new deal is a medium/long-term coffin nail in Russia’s invasion. Each sees Ukraine acquire more allied capital, expertise and scaled up production at a remove from Russia’s long range strike campaign, undermining Russia's economic advantage/boosting Ukraine's capabilities across the piece.*

1/4 Exactly this. The tendency to exaggerate the economic demands Russia's unprovoked invasion is placing on the Russian economy is typically accompanied by a failure to appreciate the capacity that in theory remains.

1/5 Another bit of this article I think is just wrong; on real wage gains.

1/5 I've issues with the analysis informing points made in this article. Instead of a thread I'll do bits, then link them together, starting with the wee bit on tax and inequality. All comments/critiques appreciated.

Possible sign of things to come in Crimea/other temporarily occupied regions

1/2 Russia out-sourcing part of its air defenses to Sberbank kinda makes sense (it's a government cash cow and nationwide organisation with >12,000 branches), but, besides the cost, raises questions about equipment quality/access, training and, above all, integration with existing arrangements,

Given the numbers now being destroyed and the limited protection they provide, driving a car or truck is presumably now one of the deadliest places for a Russian invader to be *.

So American rhetoric about Ukraine is changing with Bessant, Vance and Hegseth now flat out lying about how much help the US provides/how much they're learning from Ukraine *. We'll see next month if/when the US congress debates a new Ukraine aid bill.

1/2 In a Feb 2026 Foreign Affairs article explaining why Ukraine is losing and should trade land for peace, Notre Dame University's Professor Michael C. Desch cited the greater motivation of Russian soldiers as a factor. Here's a Russian soldier being motivated. Or you could cite the use of blocking

1/5 Nazi Germany famously didn't formally shift to a "total war" economy—where civilian life and industry are completely subordinated to the war effort—until 1943. Doing so completed a transformation that had seen military spending increase from c.1/4, to 1/2, to 3/4 of German GDP.

Not as impressive as this, the US entry to Russia's revived 2025 Innervision Song contest *

Because they're irredeemable arseholes, this and the threats against Latvia are presumably Russia doing what it considers appropriate groundwork for any peace discussions with Europe.

A reminder Graham's Russia sanctions bill (which has presidential veto proof support in the US senate) was introduced on April fools day 2025.

The issue here is the US deporting Ukrainian refugees (another is so what's happened to Trump's prisoner exchange deal?).

1/2 Russia has used debt forgiveness to attract new army recruits since Dec 2024, explicitly linking financial distress to the willingness to serve. With Russian interest rates at crisis levels for much of 2024/25, 2025 saw a notably large YoY increase in personal bankruptcies.

Drones generate (far) more headlines, but artillery still matters judging by the number of systems Ukraine’s general staff report were destroyed in the past week alone (569, roughly an entire British army’s worth).

The Russian economy is very much at war, but is not, by historic standards, a "war economy", given the military only accounts for at most 10% of GDP (for Ukraine it's c.40%), comparable to the US and Vietnam. And the direction of interest rates very clearly suggests a correcting system.

Good summary of the foreign policy benefits of Ukraine's arms deals to which you can then add the economics (e.g. access to capital, technology, scale economies, exports, etc.)

1/2 The US "gave 100s of billions of dollars of our weapons to Ukraine" aka $65bn, which included valuing decades old equipment at replacement value, because c.70% of US military aid for Ukraine was a domestic job creation scheme.

Conversely, despite being throttled by the Kremlin, youtube is still so popular in Russia it's used to recruit young, Russian workers.

A recurring point made is that for all Ukraine innovates faster, Russia has the advantage of being able to produce at scale. Deals like this give Ukrainian innovation scale, capital and production expertise at a remove from Russian air assaults; advantage Ukraine! *

1/2 Stanimir was kind enough to provide a link to a good Russian central bank resource/monthly report for tracking the Russian economy. It's a live document and a reminder Elvira Nabiullina is a more significant contributor to Russia's war effort than any general. It's also a reminder that

It's tempting to be high falutin and suggest the US is now to Orban what Russia is to Bashar Hafez al-Assad, but the better comparison is with an Andrew Wakefield or David Icke, because America has long been a money making refuge for charlatans, bigots and cranks.

Modelling the US military's missile consumption in Iran

So influence/foreign policy benefits plus investment in product development and production, scope for scale economies all over the place (negating the advantage Russia's larger economy is assumed to enjoy), and co-production out of range of any Russian drones. Nice!

TACO

Trump's attacks on NATO - (t)hey weren't there for us - benefits greatly from the American tendency to under-report, lie about and/or misrepresent US and European aid for Ukraine since Jan 2025. At no point has Trump's America been there for Ukraine.

one immediate dramatic consequence of the Hungarian result: Magyar has promised to repair relations with the EU and unblock a €90bn EU loan for Ukraine

A creator taking the time to share an insight into their (brilliant) creation is some good internet.

An American think tank fellow and broadsheet newspaper columnist spreading obvious misinformation on twitter about US aid for Ukraine. Facts.