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Endgame: Russia’s war economy hits its limits
(www.kielinstitut.de)
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this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2026
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I’ll believe it when I see it. I have been hearing this since 2022 and they’re unleashing more and more ballistic missiles on Kyiv every week
It was predicted for more than 2 years, and it's happening now.
The Russian economy is collapsing, The Russian wealth fund is empty, and Russia has been selling gold reserves to prop up the economy, oil exports are dwindling, and they have to import refined oil products now at inflated prices.
The Russian infrastructure is collapsing too, and farmers can't get the harvest done, because fuel is either not available or too expensive so it will cost more to harvest than to let the crops rot in the field.
The fact that you are not seeing it, is not because it isn't happening.
I have no idea why so many upvote you not knowing what's going on.
You are seeing it, it is just very far away and doesn't happen all at once. Just as an organism can have 100 things wrong with it, be terminally ill and refuse to die for decades, a country can be in a tailspin of decline for a long time.
Russia has dwindling international partners, ever-fewer customers for its resources, crippling domestic fuel shortages, and a devastated working-age male population. Just as its taking a decade or more to finish crashing, they'll feel this for long after they stop doing the dumb things that have caused it.
I’m still seeing more and more ballistic missiles damaging Kyiv, still see Russia trying to capture cities and regions in the Donbas.
Yes, the economy is bad, but I don’t see the war ending soon because of it. People in rural Russia will just be worse off than they already are…
The war will probably not end until Russia has collapsed or Putin is removed.
Russia is absolutely collapsing now, but it takes time for the biggest country in the world and with 140 million people to collapse entirely.
How long we do not know, but despite Russia has attacked Kyiv heavily 2 times within a week, is not a sign in any way that they are winning or even standing their ground. Ukraine now has 3 times the attacks into Russia compared to what Russia is sending the other way.
And we are only 12 days into the 40 days and 40 nights campaign Zelenskyj announced! And the Flamingo missile is now evidently VERY real!
Oh look! The photon guy wants to see stuff. 😂
Part of the reason this happens is these changes take a lot longer than anyone would really like.
But, there are widespread fuel shortages in Russia, most of the country is facing some type of rationing, and that's something that hasn't happened before.
Man I dont know about the missiles. But yeah I feel we read this article every week. "Sanctions are about to grind russian economy to a halt", "Russias oil industry about to implode", "Russian war industry about to hit its limit".
It just never really seems to do so.
No you haven't, for 2-3 years it was predicted, difference now is that it's actually happening.
Most of us thought Russia would collapse sooner, but now it's actually here. The Russian economy and infrastructure is collapsing, with widespread fuel-shortages despite heavy rationing, and fuel so expensive farmers can't afford to harvest.
The Russian federal economy is out of money, their wealth fund is used up, and they've sold gold reserves to get by beginning already months ago.
Where did you see that claim? Seems a lot like a straw man to me, because everybody have said all the time that the Russian war industry will be the last to be affected by the economic collapse. Because it has the highest priority.
They have been having widespread fuel shortages but yeah, they can keep limping along until they cannot I guess.
The media tend to oversensationalize things, the Russian oil industry imploding isn't happening yet, but it has gone down to the point that nearly all of Russia is struggling to find enough fuel.
Killing off an economy takes forever, the effects of sanctions are slow, especially if an economy propped up by war time spending. But no amount of financial propping up can save an economy if its energy demands can't be met. To be fair, Ukraine isn't even close to disabling Russia's energy infrastructure, they're only seriously hitting one aspect of it.
It happens slowly, then all at once
Absolutely, Putin has used extreme measures of kicking the can down the road, so it has been happening more slowly than expected. But now Putin and Russia are out of tricks, and things seems to be accelerating a lot now.
Let’s hope it also stops the war, but I think it will just make things more awful for poor people in Siberia who are already living under shitty circumstances
Obviously this war is already making things more shitty for all Russians. 2 million people in Crimea in panic because it's hard to get out without fuel. No electricity, no fuel, no Internet, and food is rationed.
The fuel shortage is now a problem for all regions of Russia, and fuel is rationed by federal decree.
Siberia has the advantage that Ukraine has very few drones with long enough range to hit them. But yes most of the eastern Russian federation depend on the west economically and probably also for food. But many Russians in those eastern parts have already moved back west, resulting in for instance mining cities that are empty. Some are populated with Chinese and North Korean workers, to continue mining, because the Russians are moving away.
The number of missiles and drones launched by Russia has been fairly steady since last year, sure there are some peaks here and there, but on average the numbers don't go up, rather they've been going down slightly for the past few months. Ukraine's countermeasures have become much more effective though with less than 10% of drones making it through.
I specifically said ballistic missile attacks, which have gone up drastically
From a previous comment, I understand that they are being forced to use the significantly more expensive ballistic missiles, which use up fuel they can't afford to use, specifically because their drone success ratio is so far down lately.
All other military options they have are removed: artillery, infantry and armor get killed by drones. Russian drones get shot down before reaching target. They are hoping they can force a better settlement with the current terror bombings before they run out of fuel entirely
Let’s hope that’s the case, but they have surely been benefitting off the fact that Ukraine’s anti-missile defences are down
It's not quite "more every week"; the numbers seem to be roughly stable since April. Of course it's still a lot.
One question that occurs to me is whether they can actually sustain this. Missiles aren't that cheap or fast to produce so it's possible that they're throwing out more than they can sustain in an attempt to wear down Ukraine at the last moment.
I'm not an expert on the weapon systems involved so maybe I'm way off base.
The past week we've seen 2 massive attacks on Kyiv, the first was the biggest yet for the whole war, and the 2nd was almost as big.
But my guess is they were panic attacks by Putin, because he has nothing else he can do. And he wanted to retaliate for the attacks on refineries in Saint Petersburg and Moscow. That were both a very strong demonstration of power from Ukraine.
First half of your sentence yes, second half of your sentence no. There are ebbs and flows of numbers of missiles launched, but compared to earlier in the war I'm pretty sure Russia is launching significantly fewer now, especially if you consider the destructive power of each missile used
No? They’re definitely ramping up their ballistic missile attacks and causing a lot more damage. Of course it’s not at the same pace as it was in the beginning, but that was after years of building up.