Ukraine

Yes many good points, and I just read another economic report here, that together makes a more complete picture.

You are absolutely right Russia is fucked. Because while they are maintaining their economy by public spending. They have a serious problem with worker shortage. This is not exactly news, but to sum it up, 1 million people leaving Russia, at least ½ a million either participating or a casualty of war. People participating in building the war machine, and finally the low demographic influx. Combined with increased public investments, and foreign sanctions.

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/russia-economy-inflation-60-percent-falling-ruble-steve-hanke-2023-7 From the article: “According to the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, Russian inflation expectations jumped to 11.1% in July.”

It seems to me now, that despite the Russian economy being stressed, it is at the same time overheating, to barely maintaining status quo. This is of course very different from what I stated earlier, but I got a bit of extra info. ;)

That means the Russian economy is in a bubble, except this is not just financial bubble, this is all of the Russian society, including public spending and a government dictated financial bubble, and as I understand it, even government dictated production at a loss. When that collapses, it will be really bad for Russia.