Electrical/Power Systems Engineer, Internationally Recognized Queen of Anglo-Saxonia, “Expert” *sigh* there will be typos and long threads
12,925 followers 32 following 28,232 posts
view profile on Bluesky
‼️ Russia: “Denmark proposes to check all gas for Russian origin” I recommend avoiding the “Dutch Oven” technique www.moscowtimes.ru/2025/09/02/d...
I got the data. Here’s a brief teaser of a surprise “Ha Ha” moment… If Russia repeats in September the amount of placements they made August, they will miss their Q3 goal 😂
I don’t have any data to determine if this was just anecdotal or a more widespread phenomenon.
I feel like the were reports of some farmers switching crops once they realized that the export duties on grain would allow them to turn a profit. I think some of the switched to sunflowers instead. Unfortunately…
I *think* so, at least for this year. I don’t know if the harvest numbers are in yet though. From the reporting, it seems that the issue is related to the profitability of refining. And not being able to increase their prices to offset increased costs leads to the usual: empty shelves.
I rarely encounter them here, it mostly just when I drop a post over there.
*sigh* See also: “If your kids help cook it, they’ll eat it” Kids are humans, they’re all uniquely difficult in their own special way. Don’t be too hard on yourself (or them).
Is it just me, or does it seem like the trolls are getting dumber? The Kremlin is running low on cash, so perhaps they’ve switched to “budget trolls”
I added a little purple arrow at the bottom to show what section of the graph covered the first half of 2025. (I’m not used to this nomenclature, so I thought others might find in helpful)
‼️Russia: “The industry is waiting for better times” This graph shows how the civilian economy (excluding oil refining) has been in decline since the beginning of the year. That’s the blue line on the graph (the one with 106,3 written to the right) www.kommersant.ru/doc/8006149
Also, I usually put out the OFZ thread on Tuesdays but the Ministry of Finance still hasn’t released the necessary data.
Reminder: This is happening tomorrow.
🚂 It’s Back!
And let me remind you that Russia had a history of doing this same idiocy in the past.
It kills me how often I have listen to people claim that Putin is a brilliant mastermind while watching some of the idiocy of Russian government’s policies. Tell me again how Putin showing up at the SCO is some major diplomatic feat while ignoring that Russia can’t grow enough potatoes 🙄
In addition, the government can’t seem to afford to pay the police a decent wage. So who are they going to get to enforce these laws?
We’ve discussed some of the problems the Russian government is creating. 👇
What are the odds that this makes the agricultural shortages even worse?
“…Outlawed were mini-hotels and hostels, warehouses, workshops, stores, car services, nurseries, paid baths/saunas, cafes, stalls, gyms, hairdressers, sewing/carpentry shops, nurseries for the sale of animals and poultry houses, commercial greenhouse complexes in summer cottages.”
“Also, from September 1, 2025, a ban on entrepreneurial activity on garden plots came into force in Russia, said lawyer Natalya Shaluba. Amendments to the law secured the designation of such lands exclusively for personal use…”
“He specified that the harvest can only be sold in specially designated places - at a market or fair. Also, according to him, in order to trade, it will be necessary to obtain a special certificate from the SNT on the origin of vegetables and fruits.” 🤦♀️ How hard is that to get?
“…The corresponding law was published on the legal acts portal. Also, according to the expert, selling vegetables and fruits grown with your own hands is prohibited if hired workers were involved in this process.” How will they know?
“From September 1, summer residents will be able to sell surplus harvests only if the area of the plot does not exceed 50 acres, lawyer Vadim Bagaturia told NEWS.ru….”
‼️ Russia: “Russians were told whether it is legal to sell surplus crops” There are requirements… news.ru/society/ross...
✅ Volcano ✅ Helicopter ❌ Kamchatka No points
👉 “two people were preliminarily injured” 👉 “It is noted that the Mi-8 cannot be restored.”
Meanwhile in Russia… “Russian Emergencies Ministry helicopter with volcanologists on board crashes in Kuril Islands” 🚁 “A Russian Emergencies Ministry Mi-8 helicopter made a hard landing on Iturup Island in the Sakhalin Region. The aircraft lay on its side” www.mk.ru/incident/202...
Sorry
THERE’S A MAGNETIC STORM! I NEED A NAP FOR MY “HEALTH”
“"It is expected to start after midnight, which means you have a whole day to prepare yourself for the magnetic cataclysm.”” 🇷🇺: Take a daytime nap! 🤔
Meanwhile in Russia… “Expert urges to prepare for strong magnetic storm in the near future” 👉 general practitioner Konstantin Spakhov *sigh* 🇷🇺: Hear me out on this… www.mk.ru/social/2025/...
Here he is in black pants with the hedgehog t.me/bazabazon/40...
Here’s a screenshot of him getting arrested. He’s got green pants on and a top. It’s just weird. t.me/pdmnews/83300
Meanwhile in Russia… “Russian man stripped naked in front of children and juggled a hedgehog on a ruler” In Novosibirsk. I’m not sure if the man actually got naked, he was wearing several pairs of pants. The hedgehog escaped www.mk.ru/incident/202...
I guess it’s TACO Monday
Meanwhile in Russia… “An expert explained how not to arouse suspicion in a bank when transferring or withdrawing cash” Think about how weird it is that this article EXISTS. www.mk.ru/social/2025/...
Remember this?
Meanwhile in Russia… “With such a prelude, demographics will not increase: dating sites are under threat” 😂 www.mk.ru/social/2025/...
Read the next post in that thread 🤗
I get points if they manage to mobilize the car or the driver to the SMO as a result of this.
“…If the fine is not paid on time, the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate will have the right to tow the vehicle to a penalty parking lot, and its owner may be arrested for 15 days.” Good luck paying that in 24 hours when they keep shutting off the internet 👍
“In Russia, life will be made much more difficult for owners of vehicles registered abroad. In the event of a traffic violation, the period for paying fines will be reduced from the current 60 days to 24 hours…”
‼️ Russia: “The Ministry of Internal Affairs is preparing to massively jail owners of cars registered abroad” Time to burn more bridges and alienate more people! DO NOT TRAVEL TO RUSSIA www.moscowtimes.ru/2025/09/01/m...
‼️ Russia: “Russia should impose a complete ban on dating sites because they “corrupt the youth,” Vitaly Borodin, head of the Federal Anti-Corruption Project (FPBC) and a well-known author of denunciations, told Abzats.” 🤦♀️ www.moscowtimes.ru/2025/09/01/r...
‼️ Russia: “The Ministry of Energy expects a 5-6% reduction in coal production in Kuzbass in 2025 if the situation does not change” 🤔 But what if it’s worse? www.interfax.ru/business/104...
I can recall seeing multiple trains in the past moving lots of military vehicles. Not anymore. So proportionally speaking it’s even less than it would have been a few years ago.
I think it falls under “other” but when I’ve done some back of the envelope calculations, the impact is small in comparison to the rest of it. And we’re talking about the freight shipping. So just for a gut check, think about the movement of heavy equipment that we saw in say 2022 vs now.
There is a risk of a banking crisis. They’ve already defaulted on a payment that was due on 25 of July. Many of the things that are happening or are at risk of happening are things that Russia has done before. But people will still somehow be surprised when it happens again.
When I look at some of the numbers suggested for 2025 deficit. Like 8 trillion or 10 trillion, I legitimately have no clue how they’re going to pay that. It’s more than the liquid assets of their National Welfare Fund. No one outside of Russia is lending to them.
That’s part of it, but also it’s not a market economy. It tries to masquerade as one, but it’s not. I’m not even joking here when I say that many of the moves Russia is making are similar to what Zimbabwe has done.
I think I sort of see where you’re going, I just want to make sure that we don’t draw conclusions prematurely. And right now, I don’t think there is enough data to make a determination. 🫤
We’ve seen reports that Trucking could possibly be cheaper for some than Russian Railways. And they were providing better service (like showing up on time) when translates into savings in the long run. A lot of things are shifting right now that make it difficult to determine which is better.
Some routes aren’t electrified and thus require diesel locomotives. In addition, if the electrical grid is down the they may substitute diesel locomotives on those routes. There are a limited number of diesel locomotives.
Diesel doesn’t appear to be an issue (yet). At least not that I’ve seen. So unless a significant amount of the trucks run on gasoline instead of diesel, then that may not be a problem. If diesel becomes a problem, then it may impact Russian Railways also.
Yes, it’s very bad. You can’t compare Russia to other countries, it’s a completely different situation.
‼️ Russia: “Putin: To resolve the conflict in Ukraine, its root causes must be eliminated” Putin started the war so one might argue that he is a root cause. 😇 www.kommersant.ru/doc/8006283
‼️ Russia: “Russian authorities, together with relevant departments, are developing measures to organize alternative employment for employees of automobile plants that have switched to a shortened work week.” *According to First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov. www.kommersant.ru/doc/8006594
‼️ Russia: “Lvova-Belova visited schoolchildren in a Moscow pretrial detention center and congratulated them on September 1” She has an ICC arrest warrant for stealing children and she’s visiting children held in pretrial detention in Russia. ಠ_ಠ www.kommersant.ru/doc/8007081
‼️ Russia: “The duty on the export of sunflower oil from the Russian Federation in September will increase to 5.7 thousand rubles/t” Great work! 👍 Let’s see if more sunflower oil factories shut down! www.interfax.ru/russia/1045035
That’s exactly what my initial response was. I came very close to literally writing that exact phrase.
“The Ministry of Finance has not yet announced the preliminary parameters of the draft budget for 2026 and the planning period 2027-2028.” Or the next amended budget for 2025. They need to decide and have all the paperwork ready before the end of the month. TICK TOCK!
THEY HAVEN’T EVEN FIGURED OUT WHAT TO DO ABOUT THIS YEAR! How can you plan next year if you can’t even predict this year?
“"The economy is slowing down. If earlier we expected a growth rate of 1.5%, now it is already 1.2% GDP growth. Accordingly, the resource base is also shrinking, so we will mobilize resources this year and, accordingly, we will prepare the budget for next year based on this," he explained.”
“The source noted that due to lower expectations for GDP growth, the base for budget revenues will also shrink, which, in turn, may require the mobilization of resources.” FROM WHERE? They’re already “eating their seed corn”
Far right column below is the original budget number 👉 1.173 Trillion rubles And people are talking about 8 trillion now.
“"As for the deficit, we have already revised it (in the spring of this year - IF), it has become a little bigger - 1.7% of GDP. Perhaps it will be a little bigger. I mean that cooling is still underway, the economy is slowing down faster than expected.”” Let’s look at the original budget deficit
And numbers like 👉 8 trillion ruble deficit Are getting published in Russian Media as realistic expectations.
The ruble is still much stronger than the budget indicated further lowering expected budget income from oil sales.
And the IMF lowered it to 0.9% over a month ago.
Now they’re revising GDP down to 1.2% just 5 days after saying it was 1.5%
The deficit was already at 2.2% last month.
‼️ Russia: “The Russian federal budget for 2025 may be executed with a deficit slightly higher than the currently planned level of 1.7% of GDP, a source familiar with the preparation of budget projections told journalists.” 🤣 “slightly” www.interfax.ru/business/104...
It’s getting worse….as foretold
This is the point I want to make. There are lots of reports that get it wrong. Guess what, everyone seemed surprised when the USSR collapsed.
“Analysts polled by Interfax in early August predict an increase in GDP in 2025 by 1.4% and in 2026 by 1.7%.” So….they were wrong.
“In the baseline scenario (from April), the Ministry of Economic Development predicted Russian GDP growth in 2025 at 2.5%; in early September, it will present a revised forecast, which, as noted, was initially supposed to be lowered to 1.5% growth, but now a figure of 1.2% is being discussed.”
“…but after that, rather pessimistic data for July came out, which called into question the achievement of these figures.”
“As reported, last week Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov stated that, according to the Ministry of Economic Development, Russian GDP growth in 2025 could be no less than 1.5%,…”
I would argue that this is has been expected for a while but the timing for admitting it was either strategic or no longer avoidable.
“"The cooling is underway, the economy is slowing down faster than expected," he said. "If earlier we expected the growth rate (of the Russian GDP in 2025 - IF) to be 1.5%, now it is already 1.2%," the source noted.”
Meanwhile the IMF lowered their forecast to 0.9% over a month ago
How recently? 👉 5 days ago
‼️ Russia: “The Russian economy is cooling faster than the government had previously expected, and Russian GDP growth in 2025 could be 1.2% instead of the recently announced 1.5% and the official April forecast of 2.5%” 🍿 www.interfax.ru/business/104...
Many in Russia do not trust it. The Central Bank is supposedly calculating it based on over the counter transactions. It has been doing this ever since the MOEX was sanctioned.
There aren’t great sources on how exactly those bonds in green are calculated. Somewhere in my threads I have the link to this source (I think it’s a Tass article, but I’m too tired to look for it) But at least this is a description.
Here is my table for Variable Rate bonds. This is one of the green bonds where the payments are offset by 6 months. So you find out what the next payment will be around the time you receive a payment.
The Russian Ministry of Finance announced the 23rd coupon payment for Variable Rate Bond PK-29007 👉 106.51 rubles per 1000 ruble face value bond. This payment is due 4 March 2026
The Russian Central Bank posted the exchange rate for tomorrow 👉 80.4261 rubles per U.S. dollar cbr.ru/eng
‼️Russia: “New NATO headquarters opens in Finland, 300 km from St. Petersburg” 🇫🇮: 🥳 www.moscowtimes.ru/2025/09/01/v...
‼️ Russia: “Salary delays have begun in Putin's "shadow" tanker fleet” LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL! www.moscowtimes.ru/2025/09/01/n...
Here are the price controls. 👉 “federal chains refused to raise retail prices”
I’ve been telling you that the price controls have existed for a while even if it does seem like initially. Like in this article from a few months ago.
“Such figures are related to the shutdown of some plants, whose profitability in February was minus 20%, says Dmitry Krasnov, Managing Director of the Competence Center in the AIC at Reksoft Consulting.“ Previously price controls were noted as a problem.
