comment: >
  
  Economic pain is about to get much worse for Russia in 2023 with the new price cap on their oil (their biggest source of revenue) and the collapse of their natural gas exports to their largest customer, Europe.
  This is why they're expressing more willingness to negotiate now since it's going to become much harder to fund their war without cutting into domestic spending, which risks backlash from their own citizens.
context: The rouble lost about 8% against the dollar last week and is on course for a monthly decline after an oil embargo and price cap came into force. The finance ministry has said the recent slump was related to recovering imports. >
  
  But, but, but , I thought the Russian government said the price cap wouldn't do anything! >
  
  Perhaps they're right, because maybe the rouble is already worthless. You can't make a worthless currency more worthless. * taps forehead  * >
  
  I don't understand the end game. Show the world your military sucks. Have your military destroyed. Sanctions upon sanctions. Lose companies and tourism. 
  And then, GREAT SUCCESS? >
  
  There were a few goals, all failed except one (and that one is still a fuckup for Russia)
  Firstly: prevent the expansion of NATO, catastrophic failure.  Finland and Sweden will join by the end of next year.
  Population increase, catastrophic failure.  Russian demographics are a shitshow and they wanted to add the 44 million Ukrainians to boost their population, especially is the child baring ages.
  About the only goal that they kinda succeed at is preventing Ukraine from developing the oil and gas industry in Donbas (home of the second largest proven oil/gas reserves in Europe).  Of course, the reason they wanted this was to maintain their hold on Europe’s energy sector, which they have now lost even though they managed to prevent Ukraine from entering the market. >
  
  
  About the only goal that they kinda succeed at is preventing Ukraine from developing the oil and gas industry in Donbas
  
  A Pyrrhic victory but without the whole "victory" part >
  
  Russia just invented the pyrrhic defeat? >
  
  I think the kids today would call that "eating the whole L" >
  
  Might you please be so kind as to explain that phrase?  Urban Dictionary and Google have not been helpful in this case. >
  
  I'm not a young person but I'm incredibly high and the phrase seems to be a natural progression from "Taking the L," or taking the loss. You don't just gotta take the L, you gotta eat it, too! >
  
  Its not even tradable like usual. 
  If they had not pulled every trick to prop that up artificial it woul be way way way worse.
  Little edit cause of recent events.
  Hastag RUNONRUSSIANBANKS ist trending in part because more and more  russians seem to have troubles getting their hands on their own money as of lately.
  This should get interesting. >
  
  I can buy them here in china I think >
  
  I would like to purchase some of this garbage please. >
  
  I feel like there is always money to be made. I would have loved to have bought it when it initially bottomed out and then rose again >
  
  Well then fuck you >
  
  Some people lose all morals as soon as they enter the market. They’re trying to profit off of human suffering and chances are they’re not even aware. That’s the sad part.
  They’re like “Well, gotta make do somehow!” >
  
  Imagine trading some sort of psudo-currency which has the horrible effect of increasing CO2 dumped into the atmosphere with every trade.  People would literally be increasing climate change just to try profiting from people's perceived value of this psudo-currency.  But somehow that has been normalized. 😞 >
  
  It’s not so far fetched. Have you seen how much power these crypto currencies actually need? It exceeds the energy consumption of multiple countries combined. >
  
  I have and it is depressing. >
  
  We need to sell off all the Oligarch’s money property now. >
  
  I’ll buy it for 14$. Final offer >
  
  I'll give you $15 >
  
  Clearly you’re more rich than I am. It’s yours. >
  
  Well bargained and done >
  
  Good, get the fuck out of Ukraine! >
  
  "No, we're fine throwing good money after bad." >
  
  "We'll leave when we've crippled our demographics and economy for at least the next 40 years!" >
  
  At this juncture, Ukraine's worst case prospects are a North Korea 2.0 situation where the west gets an almost inordinate amount of foreign investment and the east gets neglected to serve as buffer space. 
  The closest thing Russia has to a long term friend is Iran and Russia is too Zero Sum for that to meaningfully turn such a coalition into a threat. India is a wildcard who will do what is ultimately best for India, and once the dust settles Russian rivals are going to do everything they can to make better offers than Russia can match. 
  The damage to Russia is already done. Any victory form here on is pyrrhic. The only question is how many people have to die before the lines are drawn and Russia is reduced to an afterthought in the public consciousness. >
  
  
  India is a wildcard
  
  they frequently do military exercises with the US and other nato allies, so I'm pretty sure deep down they know where their bread is buttered. >
  
  So long as they press the rivalry with China, this will hold true. India has the potential to be a world power on its own, but its biggest weakness is an unwillingness to see the unremarkable status they're in and make compromises with more powerful natieons, ie: pride.
  A huge part of Modi's rhetoric is to thumb his nose at the so-called west (not helped by NATO's current arrangement with Pakistan). Just so, India doesn't actually have the ability to project its influence, yet. They will likely behave similarly to Turkey over the next 20 years, stamping its feet and demanding respect from the more powerful factions around them rather than gaining influence within those factions. In this, Russia's situation is a win/win for Modi as it allows him to puff his chest against the will of NATO states by taking advantage of a situation for (long term) very little political consequences, ie: when the dust settles India will likely abandon Russia to her economy and start building relationships with the Anglosphere minus the UK itself. >
  
  They butter their rotis mate. >
  
  Sanctions still haven't fully kicked in yet. Once gas and oil demand reduces further then the Russian economy will find itself in very bad shape. Worse yet nobody is going to be keen on becoming reliant on their fuel for a very long time yet. It's going to take decades to recover >
  
  But by then renewables will have killed the existing energy sector anyway. Russia as we know it is not coming back from this. >
  
  That would be the best outcome.  Or Putin being assassinated. >
  
  Honestly unless they really screw up and get invaded by NATO their country will never recover. The perpetual cycle of corruption will just keep on going until they oust their entire government and their way of doing things. Which isn’t going to happen unless they’re invaded by NATO. Look at how beneficial it was for Japan and Germany after World War II. >
  
  There may well be another revolution of some sort which saves Russia, although it would only happen when a very large portion of the population has literally nothing to lose >
  
  Gonna have to change the spelling to rubble soon >
  
  Nah. Rubble has value as a building material. >
  
  that famous german franc >
  
  Before the adoption of the German dollar >
  
  The German Australian dollar? >
  
  "Sanctions don't work" - idiots who don't understand how sanctions work, 6 months ago and now >
  
  A good old fashioned naval embargo would be cool. >
  
  *blockade 
  And.. no. We really don't want Russian submarines (the one bit of their Navy that likely actually functions) with a justification to wreak havoc. >
  
  we could sink them first...  isn't that a normal procedure for establishing a Naval Blockade?
  This is my innocent disregard for missile battles that would follow
  And ugh.  I don't want US Sailors hurt cause I'm an idiot.. >
  
  Attack subs come in two flavours, nuclear and electric (batteries charged by diesel or air-independent propulsion (fuel cells/Stirling engines)). Nuclear's a pain because of disposal but more so operating them as nuclear engineers and the ratings that fettle nuclear-attached things (rather than just basic marine engineering which wasn't exactly a cakewalk in the first place) take a long time to train. The Russians have quite a few diesel-electric subs however called the Kilo class, which whilst probably quite well mapped at this point (sonar and any electronic signatures well understood/trackable by NATO), are still lethally quiet and relatively easily maintained. Russia has 30-40 Kilo class subs in service. One of them carries 18 torpedoes, half a dozen cruise missiles and 2-3 dozen mines, together with whatever sneaky stuff they can do (launching frogmen, cutting undersea comms cables, for example).