Why Putin is finally negotiating
Why Putin is finally negotiating
cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/56722499
"If fiscal expenses remain at their January levels throughout the remainder of the year, the NWF reserves could vanish in just three months. And even if they don’t — as is more likely — 2025 is probably the last year Moscow will be able to fully cover its fiscal deficit by tapping into those savings."
This will likely end the same way Afghanistan did (either the US or Russia), not in military victory, but with the occupying force deciding the cost is too much, and going home.
If we're lucky, we'll get to see Russia collapse again, too. As long as Ukraine can hold out long enough for this to happen.
So, with domestic borrowing increasingly out of the equation, Moscow has turned to plan C: tapping into the reserves of the Russian National Welfare Fund (NWF).
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The reason Putin might finally be ready to negotiate seems to be remarkably simple: He wants to avoid a humiliating bankruptcy.So Ukraine might hold on i.m.o.
Ukraine definitely needs to hold on longer. They also should maintain the aggressive attacks on oil and fuel facilities. Reducing those facilities to ruble will strangle Russia's ability to generate income for the next decade.
Besides the whole "russia will collapse in a couple months" rhetoric that's been floating around the past couple years, it remains a fact that there is a limit to how long russia can keep spending the way it is.
They are operating on a war-time economy, which more or less by definition is not sustainable in the long term. Also, with the way russia works, and the fact that putins victory plan seems to be "project the image that we can keep going forever in order to break Ukraine/support for Ukraine", I think it's likely that if the russian economy breaks, it's going to break quite suddenly and quite hard.
With that said, I don't know if Russia can keep going for six more months or six more years (of course, I hope for the former). Regardless, they will break sooner or later. Until that time comes, all of us in Europe need to keep ramping up military production, support for Ukraine, and sanctions against russia.