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Prune60 Profile picture
@Prune602
Mar 26 • 192 tweets • 35 min read • Read on X
I want to try to encapsulate the magnitude of big picture problems Russia is having. So here is a list:

1. In the wake of a terrorist attack Putin is blaming Ukraine instead of ISIS. This means that they might not be taking steps to address the actual problem
43. The Tucker Carlson Interview.

What a disaster
44. Putin made a recent big announcement about how he was going to make a land railway route to Crimea. He completely failed to point out that ALL of that would be in range of Ukraine’s missiles, and Ukraine had already taken out a bridge crossing into Crimea.

So….yeah
45. Before Russia invaded Ukraine RAND put out a document in like 2019 outlining how they could deal with Russia if they needed to using nonviolent means. It mostly involved getting Russia to overextend itself. Russia knew about this. THEY OVEREXTENDED THEMSELVES ANYWAY!
🤫 I’ll put it right here for anyone who actually reads this far as my gift to you!

rand.org/content/dam/ra…
46. Russia had to move a lot of its planes REALLY far away to avoid getting hit by the Ukrainians. They thought the St. Petersburg area would be far enough. Ukraine snuck cardboard drones into Russia and launched them from inside Russia destroying the planes.
Russia then moved a bunch up towards the Arctic
47. Russia keeps losing A-50s. Which is then leading the Russian military to make the bizarre declaration it was Russian Air Defense that shot them down not Ukraine. Even though Ukraine said they did it.

What insane sort of logic is that? And to do it multiple times!?
48. Putin is determined to make Surovikin disappear. Even after he was missing for a long time from view and the briefly turning up in Algeria only to disappear again, the name Surovikin hasn’t gone away.

Much of this was because of the defensive line Surovikin had built.
And every time someone referred to it, it was call the “Surovikin line”

In a desperate attempt to get people to get people to STOP calling it the “Surovikin line” Shoigu declared that ACTUALLY the whole thing was PUTIN’S IDEA! 🤣

Seriously, this happened!
49. No one is quite sure what Gerasimov’s job is at the moment. If Gerasimov has been demoted it’s a problem because it’s just another example of Putin breaking an agreement.

The agreement is that as long as you are LOYAL, you get to keep your job.
Gerasimov has been loyal. So if Putin has demoted someone who is that close to him and has remained loyal - his power structure is now wobbly.

People lose trust that loyalty will keep them safe and Putin has now brought someone closer to him that he may not trust.
50. The Russian military has lost a lot of leadership personnel. A lot of the Russian military works through what is similar to an apprentice program.

They get sent to a unit to serve, that specific organization trains them. And I don’t mean as in a specialization.
Imagine if it was one towns McDonald’s franchise. Someone gets sent to a McDonald’s and the people there train them how to do the various jobs.

Same thing. Now imagine if all the experienced people were dead or still fighting in Ukraine.
Ukraine has options to send people to train in MULTIPLE different countries. So not only are that maintaining the combat training, THEY’RE IMPROVING IT.

Russia on the other hand had to ask Belarus for help, and they’ve lost a lot of Generals
51. They still haven’t solved the egg problem, domestic production continues to decline
@zabic_marko It didn’t work, but prices somewhat stabilized. They eventually told everyone to accept the new price as the new normal. The problem is that production continues to decline. They might be hiding how bad the problem is because many Russian egg producers are owned by…
@zabic_marko Government officials.
52. Putin announced to the world that Russia had created a vaccine for cancer. No one believed him, and most people don’t even know he announced it.
53. Putin and Peskov complain about the shortage of scientists in Russia, but Russia also keeps throwing them in jail for things like treason, or they die under mysterious circumstances, like poison mushrooms. Or they die in pre-trial detention under mysterious circumstances!
54. No one is quite sure EXACTLY what happened to the Kompromat that we all feel confident that Prigozhin MUST have had. Nothing has surfaced that seems like it could be attributed to Prigozhin.

If it exists, where is it?
55. The exit of many giant companies like Microsoft has lead to multiple issues as companies struggle to find alternatives. Currently, several Russian companies are looking at trying to invest in producing a domestic operating system.

This doesn’t completely solve the problem
Because even if they make a domestic operating system, that doesn’t mean it will be compatible with some specialized softwares that are ONLY compatible with Microsoft.

And some of these software are niche enough that Russia would not be able to allocate resources to fix it.
Also keep in mind that there is a severe labor shortage of skilled and experienced personnel in this field in Russia.
This also gives me an opportunity to share one of the things I find funniest. Because of this software problem, one the issues that Russia will have to deal with is

THE LACK OF THE TIMES NEW ROMAN FONT 🤣

forbes.ru/tekhnologii/49…
Image
56. PACE declared that Putin was a dictator
57. Everyone knows that Putin poops in a suitcase while on trips. And a telegram channel convinced everyone that Putin accidentally fell down a flight of stairs and sh*t himself.
58. Maria Zakharova got banned from Bulgarian airspace forcing the Minister of Foreign Affairs Lavrov’s plane to be rerouted once they learned she was on board.
59. A little over a week ago the Russian Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy announced that if a conflict escalated between the U.S. & Russia, that the US had the ability to turn off ALL Russia’s western smartphones

And just sort of left it at that
I mean, he sort of said that they should prepare for that. But considering all the propaganda that’s spread about how they’re already fighting NATO, this guy just sort of tosses this out there, and there’s NO reassurance to the public that it will be ok.
60. A fight has broken out in the Russian information space.

- On one side is are the Russian military bloggers
- On the others side, people in various leadership positions that don’t want certain information that looks bad to get out. They’ve turned to propagandists for help
In one incident people associated with Solovyov’s network dressed up some people in camo put them in what appeared to be BBQ hut filmed them and declared that they were actually the Russian 205th Brigade sending a message from Ukraine!
A popular Telegram channel was shut down and several Russian military bloggers have turned up dead, including one recently that reportedly committed suicide.
This sort of stuff illustrates how on multiple levels accurate information is not being relayed. How the heck are you supposed to lead an effective fighting force with this stuff going on?

Meanwhile “unit cohesion” is not something I think they’ve even contemplated!
61. They’re executing their own soldiers
62. When Ukraine got HIMARS, Russia knew they got HIMARS. It was EXPLAINED how HIMARS works. That it uses GPS coordinates. Russia then put radar reflectors on everything 🤦‍♀️, and then continued to waste time and energy installing them everywhere!
63. After years of using his power move of making others waiting for long times for Putin to show up, multiple heads of state have been returning the favor.

The result is always a wonderfully awkward video of Putin just standing there…all alone…waiting.
64. There have multiple occasions now at international assemblies, where almost everyone got up and left when it was Russia’s turn to talk.

They just WALKED OUT
65. Lavrov went to India, was on stage, spouted some nonsense, and everyone laughed at him.
66. Lavrov left the 2022 G20 meeting in Bali early because no one wanted to talk to him, or take a picture with him, or eat with him.

So he ran away
67. In February, Lavrov went to Brazil for a G20 meeting of Foreign Ministers.

He then planned to fly from Rio to Brasilia, to meet with Brazil’s President.

But he couldn’t because due the risk of secondary sanctions, he couldn’t get his plane refueled!
They finally offered to give Lavrov a ride with Brazil’s Foreign Minister.

He had to bum a ride!
68. Russian Nuclear Weapons

68a. When Biden visited Kyiv, Russia planned to test its Sarmat missile. The Sarmat missile test failed (we found out later) which yanked the script away from from the Russian Propaganda machine causing them to sort of stare dumbfounded at the video
That’s how this quote happened. There was a video of Putin’s motorcade racing through Moscow at night. I think it might have been because Putin had to suddenly rewrite his speech
68b. Russia has somewhat overplayed their nuclear threat hand in terms of scaring people overseas. And they know it. They still continue to use it like a security blanket, but it’s not as effective.

They also know it doesn’t work at all for some generations.
68c Leonid Kalashnikov let it slip that they didn’t have anyone to test their nuclear weapons. Which to me, seems like a problem.
68d Margarita Simonyan talked about nuking Siberia and that nothing bad would happen. This led to massive backlash and Margarita desperately tried to walk this back.
Note: One propagandist suggested blowing up the North Pole!
68e. During one of the missile attacks on Ukraine, it was revealed that Russia had resorted to using one of the missiles that was ment to be used with a nuclear warhead, but perhaps due to a severe shortage of missiles/desperation, they used it with a conventional warhead.
68f. Ukraine took out a strategic nuclear bomber
68g. I’m going to put this here to point out the time a Russian propagandist tried to use the plot to from the 1978 film Superman and pretend it was something Russia could actually do.
It’s the same plan!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman_…
68h. Russian propaganda has practically gone full death cult waiting on the nuclear war as if it’s “the rapture”

(It’s gotten a lot worse lately) even though there’s been nothing that has given the U.S. a reason to change its nuclear posture.
69. The T-14 Armata, they finally just gave up on that
70. Putin’s 2023 Victory Day parade only had one tank in it, a T-34. And it was the ONLY tracked vehicle in the whole parade.
71. There was that time Russia showed footage of them blowing up farm equipment and telling everyone they were Leopard 2s
72. Based on my observations, Russia has a very effective unit that NO ONE can deny their fast action a skill. And no one ever talks about it 🧐

What ever people are called in to paint over stuff by far is their most successful unit.
If there is a blue and yellow sign or something unflattering to Putin, they paint over that in no time at all!

Russia takes over town, sure they destroyed everything, committed war crimes, and there’s no food or water, but by golly, the town sign isn’t blue & yellow anymore!
73. Trying to get a corporate sponsor for a nuclear heavy missile cruiser
74. Red lines for Russia appear to be a joke
75. Borders for Russia appear to be a joke as the Russian Legion has no problems crossing them
76. Domestic Russian propaganda viewership is down even as the Russian government pumps more funds into them.

Putin’s interview with Tucker Carlson just barely beat out at a show about psychics
77. The Kremlin tried make a lots of drama over the “almost naked party” to try to push their “traditional values” agenda and distract from other shortcomings.

It looks ridiculous considering the other issues Russia is having.
78. If you’re not familiar, look into the statistics of HIV in Russia. It’s bad.
79. Russia’s satellite imagery is bad.

Ukraine had a giant tarp printed with an image of the previously destroyed hanger on it, then placed it over the top of the NEW hangar.

The Russians couldn’t tell the difference & concluded the planes must be hidden underground somewhere. Image
80. I’m not 100% sure if Russian has been able to defend their border against Norwegian Reindeer, but they’ve been expressly forbidden to cross it.

Russian lichen is apparently delicious and they probably do what they want. Image
81. Russia has probably permanently burnt a ton of bridges with the international business community. I find it highly unlikely that any well run business would choose to invest in Russia now.

I have written several threads on this but I will try to give a brief overview.
Putin issued a decree that allows him to seized foreign assets in Russia. He has used this decree several times, but perhaps most notably with Danone & Carlsberg brewing.

Carlsberg brewing even appears to be losing control of branding. This is a nightmare for business.
If you are a foreign business and you meant to leave Russia you have to go through a process and a board. It can take 6 months a more. The companies assets HAVE TO BE SOLD FOR AT LEAST A 50% DISCOUNT.
Then the company is the required to pay a percentage of the company’s value directly to the Federal government.

I’ve seen the values vary, as far as I’ve seen THE BEST a foreign company can expect when leaving Russia is 45% of the assets value.
The Russian government’s rationale here was:

🇷🇺: If I make it incredibly painful to leave then they won’t leave!

While this may work on some, the end result is that everyone hates you and the companies that stay are not going to risk anything more than they already have.
82. Russia has pretty much run out of ways to artificially prop up the ruble. Right now they’re forcing companies to sell the foreign exchange earnings and buy rubles. The dollar exchange rate keeps creeping up.
83. The Russian Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance disagree all the time. The Central Bank usually has the wiser decision, but Putin usually goes with the Ministry of Finance’s idea.

Possibly because their idea was Putin idea.
84. People like me exist to annoy the Russian propagandists
Document when they have committed crimes
Or give irrefutable proof that they lied in the UN Security Counsel.
I try to keep it light though.
85. Russia has now entered into disinformation war with ISIS. I still don’t quite think they grasp the nature of that fight. I also wonder if the propagandists understand the new risks they are possibly acquiring. 😬
86. A bunch of people in Russia died from bad cider and Putin is talking about having less business inspections.
87. The MASSIVE Wildberries warehouse burnt down and then the government told everyone that they didn’t know it was there.

🇷🇺: They didn’t fill out their paperwork
88. The Wagner Rebellion!

No one ever physically stopped them. They were on their way to Moscow and CHOSE to turn back! Again Putin was absent. THEY LOST 7 PLANES!
89. Russia had to cancel their plans to build a nuclear-powered icebreaker because Russia bombed the plant that was supposed to supply large parts of the hull.
90. This exists to “protect” the Crimean bridge. Image
91. The Black Sea Fleet headquarters had some involuntary skylights installed Image
92. Russia was not in Kherson forever.
93. Russia was kicked out of CERN
94. Ukraine & Moldova synchronized themselves to the European power grid, disconnecting themselves from Belarus & Russia
95. The Baltics plan to synchronize to the European power grid in less than a year, disconnect from Russia and Belarus. When it does this, it will leave Kaliningrad on its own with no outside connection.
Kaliningrad will have to rely on itself for all of its power generation and power grid stability.
96. The Russian Central Bank has pulled the licenses of the 3 banks since the beginning of the year. They are:

- QIWI
- Hephaestus
- Strela
97. The FSB told everyone that this was a suspect in the killing of Darya Dugina Image
98. Dugin suggested that fornicators should be burned alive. And this was after his daughter died 😬
99. Russia named a street after Daria Dugin - who died in a car bombing - in OCCUPIED Melitopol.

There have been a lot of car bombings in Melitopol since then.
100. You can tell how much people at certain publications in Russia hate Margarita Simonyan or Maria Zakharova based on how bad of a picture they post of them next to an article.

Here’s a recent one I saw: Image
101. Russian propagandists once threatened the United States with kites because they were jealous of China’s balloons.
102. Russians dug in the contaminated soil around Chernobyl and reportedly ate fish from the reactor pond
103. Russia can’t seem to stop itself from striking Belgorod!
104. Russia had to fire a propagandist for saying this about Maria Zakharova
105. Mercedes-Benz and BMW declared that they were disconnecting Russian dealerships from their online manufacturers software systems. These are systems that can quickly diagnose a problem. Russia would just have to diagnose on their own.

Solovyov had a fit.
106. Russian diplomats have been expelled from multiple countries. Even though some diplomats remain, their numbers have been drastically reduced.
107. A drone once booped the flagpole of the Kremlin. Russian propagandists declared it was an assassination attempt on Putin who wasn’t there. They also decided they needed to nuke the White House!
This was it:
108. Sergey Mardan suffered from chair malfunctions
109. Solovyov keeps getting his mic cut
110. Russian propaganda is having a lot of technical difficulties
111. People write in to Solovyov in hopes of getting some useful information. Like the weather on other parts of country.
112. The weather report for Moscow isn’t really that helpful
113: Lukashenko’s map Image
114: That one time the weather guy got a giant map
115: When Solovyov complained about someone’s dancing & felt this was necessary
116: Because if the issues of banking with India, Russia decided to come up with a Banana scheme!
117: Dmitry Medvedev, what a mess
118: Russians go to Sri Lanka, set up “whites only” policy, and then they’re surprised when Sri Lanka kicks them out

What did they think was going to happen?
119: All the racism on Russian TV!
120: The time Ukraine bought ALL the racing drone parts from China, so there was none left for Russia
121: When Ukraine bought tank parts from corrupt Russians thereby reducing the number of tanks Russia has available without a shot fired.
122: The Russian military couldn’t properly feed its soldiers
123: That time 1.5 MILLION Russian uniforms were “missing” (if they ever existed at all)
124: Residents of Khabarovsk Krai asked Putin to protect them from tigers.

Putin didn’t help, and then a wild tiger killed a guy.
125: A bear in Yakutia killed 2 mobilized soldiers and wounded 3 more.
126: A lot of Russia still isn’t gasified and doesn’t have running water or indoor toilets.
I should go to sleep! Maybe I’ll add more if people are still interested 😘
@Elnordon1 A lot of people in Russia showed up to his funeral or to different events in Russia in the face of some really direct threats from the Russian government & propaganda. It was unusual to see that number in Russia.

However, it’s unclear if anything else will come of it.
@bright_not50448 BTW, China also took a swing at Russia’s navigation system.
@parlin Second, I think the plane manufacturers THEMSELVES banned them from working in the planes and said that if they found out they did them they’d yet banned too.

Third, they have been cannibalizing planes for parts.
@parlin Fourth, the planes that were on lease and stolen generally do not leave Russian airspace. Because if they landed elsewhere there’s a chance the other country would be obligated to seize the planes.
@parlin I’m curious whether this buyout process will lift this obligation to seize the planes and thus that’s the driver for them doing it. So they can leave the country.

I’m not sure.
@parlin They STILL wouldn’t be allowed to fly in Europe but they might be able to fly elsewhere.
Correction: I had a typo! President Tokayev said he would NOT recognize the Donbas regions as independent.

SPIEF stands for “St. Petersburg International Economic Forum”
BTW Solovyov let everyone know the Margarita Simonyan met with Putin before and after the SPIEF.

AT the SPIEF she told everyone “All our hope is in the famine”
127. Margarita Simonyan is the Editor in Chief of RT. They put out a series of awful videos in 2022 threatening Europe.

Here’s the infamous: You’ll have to eat a hamster! ad
128. In their effort to increase the birth rate Russia trying is all types of ways to try to increase the birth rate that involve regressing women’s rights.

🤦‍♀️ This is so bad, it hard to believe. So here we go…
The Russian Minister of Health has pushed the agenda that women should be giving birth instead of pursuing a career or education.

And he wants girls to be taught this ideology while in school.
With efforts to push girls to have their first child by age 19 or 20
Russia State Media everyone! ⤵️
There was a plan being considered to try to “motivate” female prisoners to conceive.
129. Russia declared “The LGBT movement” an extremist organization.

Now this is bad enough, but in relation to the wording of the court ruling, some are not sure if FEMINISM falls under this ruling as well

The Higher School of Economics decided they didn’t want to chance it
One MP has brought forth a bill to declare Feminism an extremist ideology. I haven’t seen it go anywhere…yet.
Again, this is messaging APPROVED by the Russian Government
130. But also they need to be Labor reserve too!
131. And put the pensioners to work too!
132. Russia put pressure to shut down the group that used to write articles for the Russian language Wikipedia. It did (the group that writes the articles)

It declared it was going to make their own online encyclopedia! Except…they realized it was too hard.
They massively underestimated the amount of effort it would take to write all of those articles. So they came up with a NEW plan!

👉 STEAL THE ARTICLES from Wikipedia.

They figure they only need to censor a small portion of it so that would be easier!
And then they did this 🤦‍♀️
133. Russia adjusted theirs laws to make it possible to deprive someone of ACQUIRED Russian citizenship under the flimsiest of reasons. And they’ve already used it to deprive someone of Russian citizenship for “spreading fakes”
They have made a first attempt at trying to pass a bill that would allow them to deprive someone of their BIRTH Russian citizenship. Didn’t work, but I have a feeling they’ll try again.
Note: “spreading fakes” can be anything they don’t want repeated. Same thing goes for “discrediting the military”

You can see the conundrum here ⤵️
134. In an effort to try to NOT lose their very valuable IT personnel, they were supposed to be excluded from mobilization. That didn’t always happen!
135. In general Russia didn’t use their personnel to their strengths. ANYONE could be sent to the infantry in a meat assault! Even if they actually spent the time to train them in artillery!

Spend anytime looking at it and there was no rhyme or reason as to how they did this!
136. All the people who were sent as part of “partial mobilization” in the fall of 2022 still haven’t left. They haven’t been relieved or allowed to rotate out.

The only way they leave is if they’re

200: Dead
300: Severely wounded
When Kartapolov finally TOLD everyone that the mobilized would not be allowed to leave, Sergey Mardan commended him “for his bravery”

🙄
This is Kartapolov

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Ka…
137. Russia sanctioned Morgan Freeman.

MORGAN FREEMAN!
138. Russian Propagandists often talk about seizing Alaska, but sometimes they ALSO talk about seizing California.

Somehow they never bring this up:

$1.86 Trillion 👈 Estimated 2023 GDP of Russia

$3.89 Trillion 👈 Estimated 2023 GDP of California
139. There doesn’t appear to be a moment when Russia is stopping itself and realizing they’ve gone too far.

There are tons of these situations. People are afraid of the government and that’s exactly what they want.
When you get into these types of environments, anything different is punished and/or frowned upon. Innovation does not thrive in these scenarios. It is not really what they want people to do. They want people to do what they’re told.

Not a recipe for success
140. Unless it is something Putin doesn’t care about, the Russian Foreign Ministry does NOT handle diplomatic matters.

They are usually there to complicate things or generate propaganda. They might be there as spies. But NOT diplomacy.
If Putin wants to do something like that he uses trusted OLIGARCHS instead.

Often he turns to Roman Abramovich to handle these matters. When the Azov commanders were released ABRAMOVICH is who he sent for negotiations, not Lavrov.
141. There are very few people who can talk reason to Putin (or that maybe even try).

The only one I know who has convinced Putin to not do something stupid is Lukashenko (believe it or not). Lukashenko is NOT a good guy, but he is smarter than people think.
President Xi has leverage over Putin so he can probably negotiate with him reasonably.

The West I think is more like a chess match. Doesn’t count as “talking reason”. He knows that there are moves that he shouldn’t make, or else.
Remember that part of the problem with Prigozhin is that Putin shut him out. And Prigozhin was someone who would talk somewhat plainly to Putin.

He’s not around anymore!
In a narrow range another person who maybe qualifies is Elvira Nabiullina who is the head of the Central Bank.

But more and more often Putin overrules her and goes with Anton Siluanov, the Minister of Finance’s plans which in my opinion, seems unwise.
So even if she gives Putin wise council, he’s listening to her less than before.
142. This brings me to maybe one of the biggest points and most important points.

There’s not really many people around to stop Russia from making dumb choices. And I want to make very clear the context I mean this in.
Russia does have pressure not to do massively stupid stuff like use nukes. So take that out of the equation.

I’m talking about dumb internal decisions. All the ones you might think…surely they wouldn’t do something THAT dumb, someone would have said something!
All of that is possible. The invasion of Ukraine has been a catastrophe, but Putin keeps going all in as everything falls down around him, and no one appears willing to stop Putin from sending them into financial ruins as far as I’ve seen.
Now, it’s possible that Putin may make some good decisions. But if he is about to make a bad one, there’s not really anyone to stop him.
After the Wagner Rebellion, I’m not sure if there is anyone internally that is willing or able to unseat Putin.

And I’ve only really seen one person even mentioned recently as a possible successor to Putin, and that is Patrushev’s son. But that’s if Putin retires/dies.
So…in summary:

👉 IT WILL GET WORSE 👈
@GuyKeverneBody @notimetobehere Yikes Image
@CoquetteStJacq 1. I suggest adjusting the perception of how nukes “work”

Majority of the work nukes do is deterrence. Russia’s nukes are like Tinker Bell. As long as people BELIEVE that they work, then they work (even if they don’t exist at all)

Russia uses them to scare people.
@CoquetteStJacq 2. The US has spent decades building networks for intelligence on Russia. The deconfliction line exists for a reason and it is used. We also have excellent satellite information.

We often know about stuff in Russia before Russia knows it. The US hasn’t changed our posture
@CoquetteStJacq 3. Even if assume that the nukes work, it absolutely NOT in Russia’s interest to use them.

Russia has a lot of defense issues so adding to their problems is a bad idea
@CoquetteStJacq 4. If he uses one against NATO, he’s dead. If he uses one (even a tactical one) against Ukraine, he’s probably dead too. But then has to deal with China too or else China loses international standing.

Biden said it was a redline, and Putin cannot handle that fight now.
@CoquetteStJacq 5. Even if the nukes were maintained (questionable) there is zero advantage to Putin using them. And if he ever did use them, no one will allow him to stay in power.

When you realize how corruption has effected all parts of Russia’s military, the odds of them working are low.
@CoquetteStJacq I am not well versed in things in the Middle East, so I’m not your best option to answer the Hamas question.

HOWEVER, I will tell you that Russia would not have any moral objections to working with Hamas if they thought it met their goals. None
@CoquetteStJacq BONUS Tweet: I do not believe the nukes that have reportedly moved to Belarus have anything to do with the war, and shouldn’t be considered as an escalation. It’s more coincidental.

(They might even been the response to of a war game the U.S. had several years ago.)
@CoquetteStJacq It’s a bit of a crazy story
@CoquetteStJacq 🏆 👈 I’m still giving myself this trophy because I think *technically* answered your question in 5 tweets

Which is a big deal for me.
@AdamGHarmonica A lot of business information has been classified, so it’s impossible to know exactly what’s going on, but I would argue that some of that is classified just so they can hide bad news.

India isn’t buying arms
@AdamGHarmonica They’ve fallen behind France in exports.
@AdamGHarmonica China absolutely ROASTED Russia over the failure of the Kinzhal. Pointing out the Putin lied about it.
@AdamGHarmonica Putin has this method of throwing scientists in jail for treason, I guess to make it look like he’s got some extra good top secret military designs that EVERYONE wants.

🤦‍♀️

His equipment hasn’t had a good showing.
@AdamGHarmonica He’s is having to get large shipments of arms & ammunition from North Korea and Iran.

He’s also using child labor to build drones
@AdamGHarmonica Here’s the REALLY heavy plane. That’s the other thing. Putin or Shoigu make announcements of what they’re going to do, people assume that it’s accurate.

But many times they can’t and Russia just keeps pushing back the delivery date.
@AdamGHarmonica That heavy plane was supposed to DELIVERED in 2016! The delivery day has been pushed back 10 years and the plane TODAY is 6 TONS too heavy.
@AdamGHarmonica Rinse and repeat this same story multiple times. People have less money than before & Russia is manipulating its inflation data
@AdamGHarmonica Here’s a car manufacturer that hiding its losses on the City of Moscows budget, artificially keeping the prices low.

Also, Russia can declare they’ve produced [insert number] of cars, but a lot of them are unfit to be sold!
@AdamGHarmonica Like this
@AdamGHarmonica The U.S. during the depression had the New Deal that helped put people to work and to fix the economy. People may think this is what the war economy does for Russia. But there’s a huge difference.

1. There were people who NEEDED jobs

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal
@AdamGHarmonica 2. The stuff they worked on BENEFITED the country and they were functional. Some of the stuff Russia makes doesn’t work.
@AdamGHarmonica In Russia there’s really no one left to work, there aren’t enough people. And now they’re driving migrants, that they DESPERATELY NEED away from the country.

So make of that what you will.

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May 17
‼️ The Russian Agriculture Thread (And what I read that worried me in May of 2024)

You might want to bookmark this, it’s going to be a long one Image
I looked and I don’t think I’ve written a thread the gives a broad overview of recent issues, so I’ll try to do that in this thread so it can be a good resource.

Let’s start by pointing out a few common problems I’ve noticed to keep in the back of your mind.
🚨 Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Luhansk, and Crimea are Ukraine.

Unfortunately, a large portion of those regions are under Russian Occupation.

Many of my sources of data come from Russia. They may refer to those regions as being part of Russia, but they are not.
Read 129 tweets
Prune60 Profile picture
May 15
‼️ PAY ATTENTION TO THIS

This is a common problem I’m seeing. People who seem very knowledgeable missing a KEY component of the problem:

Forbes Russia: “Fuel not allowed to travel abroad: why Russian coal exports are declining”

forbes.ru/biznes/512381-…
Image
If you read through it, it is like a market analyst reading through business projections. They mention the issues with tariffs & transportation costs.

They even point out that unexpected introduction and abolishment of duties at random. Image
But at no point, in the entire article have they addressed Russian Railways being overextended.

That growth would be limited because Russia lacks the ability to ship everything and that capacity is currently shrinking.

That’s why Kolmar coal reduced production
Read 9 tweets
Prune60 Profile picture
May 14
‼️ The REVEAL

First, remember that I said *potential*

We’ll have to watch this play out, and I said it was something that I WOULD NOTICE. So now I can explain the setup…and of course it involves the railroads. 🚂

(You might want to bookmark this)
I assume you’ve read through all the train threads? 👇

If not…stop & read these.
We need to recall that the maximum capacity of the Russian Railways is steadily shrinking and one of main reasons is reduced locomotives availability. A problem they only recently STARTED to come to terms with.
Read 48 tweets
Prune60 Profile picture
May 10
Putin might be about to make a decision that has the potential to be a hilariously bad idea.

I’m afraid to jinx it, so I’m just going to wait to see if he does it…and tell you what it is afterwards. 🍿
UPDATE: We’ve moved a step closer to this happening
Update: We’ve moved ANOTHER step closer…
Read 7 tweets
Prune60 Profile picture
Apr 22
I look at a LOT of Russian news from Russian news sources. And I’ve got to tell you that I don’t see ANYTHING optimistic.

The Russian government is looking for ways to get more income to fund the war, so they’re taxing increasingly more things.
This in turn makes businesses unprofitable. The government seems to help the businesses they shouldn’t while over taxing the ones they should help

I am actively LOOKING for a positive horizon in the economy for Russia & I CAN’T find one.
All is see is:

- more taxes
- more squeeze on the lowest incomes
- lower productivity
- more labor shortages
- increase censorship & repressions
Read 7 tweets
Prune60 Profile picture
Apr 18
‼️ Russian Railway Update:
(You might want to bookmark this)

Buckle in, because it’s really bad news. It is really important that you read the build up to this bad news for you to REALLY appreciate how bad it is.

Pease make sure read this👇 and ALL of the linked threads
Especially this one. Read ALL OF IT. It’s long. Don’t worry, it’s not hard reading. I make it really simple to understand. You can see Russia make a lot of bad choices.

Remember, you can bookmark these things and read them when you have time.
Seriously, read those threads if you haven’t
Read 54 tweets

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