René Duba Profile picture
Nov 29, 2024 8 tweets 3 min read Read on X
The Ruble doesn't find support. It entered into a fee fall. Now Russia has stopped trading. This means that the exchange rate will just SEEM to have stabilised, but that's not the case. The Ruble has become a 'black market only' currency.

What's a free fall?

1/
pic: Moscow Image
It means the value goes down and nothing stabilises it, nothing moves it up. It means the Ruble is not supported anymore. Not by foreign buyers who need Rubles to buy Russian exports. And not by short term measures of the Russian Central Bank.

For instance [..]

2/ Image
[..] the Russian Central Bank buying Rubles with Dollars. Bank president Nabiullina doesn't anymore.

Maybe the coffers are empty, maybe she just decided that throwing good money after a collapsing Ruble makes no sense.

So what did they do?

3/ Image
Nabiullina is highly regarded in the West as a central banker who knows what she is doing. She could keep up appearances of a Russian economy doing fine, even if everyone knew this was impossible.

But the means for her to do so are being exhausted increasingly rapidly.

4/
Russia stopped free trading of the Ruble on the exchange. It means the Ruble is now predominantly a 'black market' currency.

The exchange rate remains sort of frozen there but most people can't sell Rubles there anymore.

You want Dollars or Euros?
Black market is you goto.

5/ Image
We are looking at the monetary collapse of Russia.

Russians brought their money to Cyprus, but the 'Golden Passports' have been withdrawn.

pic: putting your money in real estate in Cyprus

6/ Image
Or Almaty, Kazachstan

7/ Image
Or Turkey, where Russians are now the predominant buyers of real estate (not even the Turkish people themselves)

The Russian economy, including the Ruble, is collapsing. Capital flight... The oligarchs had long since fled, now the middle class follows suit.

Collapse.

8/8 Image

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More from @ReneDuba

Sep 5
Since the beginning of the war, Russia has been borrowing Rubles from Russian banks in exchange for Government bonds in Rubles. Banks are forced into buying these paper promises (no collateral).

1. It means that savings and pensions are being converted into worthless paper.

1/
2. It also means that Putin's war chest is empty. Officially it is claimed there is still money in the national welfare fund, but this may not be true.

3. By september Putin already surpassed the level of 2024. Het already borrowed the equivalent of €34 bn.

2/
4. Borrowing is steeper every year (i.e. higher sums & starting earlier).

5. You can also see that Putin can extract only a certain volume every year from the Russian banks. The line goes flat in december.

3/
Read 5 tweets
Aug 21
Contrary to the information that Americans are being fed by Russia, Europe doesn't lack an army. Adding things up, the US Army has 452689 active duty personnel, adding the National Guard and reservists, you get 954875 uniformed personnel, yet Europe has twice as many soldiers.
1/
And the European army is well equipped. Lots of US gear too.

Before the war in Ukraine it could be argued that there wasn't enough ammunition for more than a few weeks of intensive fighting, but ammo production has geared up. Besides the US had exactly the same problem.

2/
What if Russia would have attacked a NATO country in Europe? NATO would probably have given the Russian army a knock-out blow. And very quickly too. That was the strategy all along.

Then what's the problem in Europe?

NATO with the US was like a jig-saw puzzle.

3/
Read 6 tweets
Aug 11
What is the truth about the story of 'the US paying for Europe's defence'?

Why does the US have a higher defence expenditure than other NATO countries?

How is that story being used politically?

1/
1. Historically, the US basically didn't want European countries (outside of the UK and France) to be independent military powers: they had support roles to the US army.

2/
2. In Trump's FSB-written talking points, Europe is being depicted as the minor military force in Europe and the US delivering the bulk. Reality is: Europe has 2.1 million well equipped soldiers, the US only 80.000 (less nowadays).

3/
Read 12 tweets
Jul 31
Putin's Russia is not after any rational advantage of a military land grab in Ukraine. If we expect rationality, in the sense of a positive cost->profit outcome like 'realists' assume, we won't find any. Instead, private and domestic reasons may explain the Kremlin's choices.

1/
We should instead consider:
1. Putin's private motives
2. Paranoia from the KGB kitchen
3. Stories (for the home front) in which Russia is threatened
4. Perceived cultural/racist superiority on which Russian imperialism floats.

2/
More on 1: Putin's private motives.
Putin started this war amidst a wave of social discontent, part of which centered around corruption and self-enrichment of Putin's elite. We remember Navalny exposing Putin's palace and that video being widely downloaded.

3/
Read 9 tweets
Jul 22
Why do some in the West get Russia so wrong?

I mean: fundamentally wrong.

And not just average people who have other jobs, but the very people whose job it is to gather intelligence and make sense of it, like Isa Yusibov mentioned:



Why is this?

1/ Image
The basic error in the West is that they attribute rationality to Kremlin leaders.

They're wrong. Kremlin leaders can perfectly _MIMIC_ rational thought, but that's not the same.

Their lead ideology is imperialism and their modus operandi is sabotage, bluff and opportunism.

2/ Image
Behind their imperialism is a sense of cultural superiority based on 'greatness', the country is great, so if over time they were able to dominate it all, they themselves must necessarily be great as well.

Do Russians themselves believe this?

3/ Image
Read 6 tweets
Jul 15
People are very much interested in how cheaply Ukraine is able to kill Shaheds.

Everyone sees that Ukraine kills them in high numbers.
Does taking them out cost more than it costs Russia to make them?

1/ Image
The answer is no. Ukraine destroys the Shaheds at a fraction of Russia's cost to build one.

Let's break it down:

Russia produces the simplest Shaheds for around 15.000 USD.

Ukraine shoots down 80% of them with plain air defence machine guns.

At what cost?

2/ Image
Ukraine shoots Shaheds down with air defense machine guns (very effectively and very cheaply).
12.7 mm (.50) rounds as bought by governments are well under 1 USD. A few bursts = a few hundred dollars.

3/ Image
Read 6 tweets

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