Stick around and find out.

The US is not at war with Russia. Congress has declared no such thing.

There is no travel ban to or from Russia. The President has implemented no such thing.

People visit Russia all the time. Journalists, government officials, business people, vacationers.

There's no crime involved, there's no issue whatsoever. In fact, after 7 years worth of anti-Russian propaganda, maybe it's time our journalists DO wander over and get the other side of the story, no?

This insistence that we even know what's going on when we've only heard one side of the story, and that side is constantly filled with lies (ghost of kiev, 100K+ Russians killed week 1, etc.) is trash.

Looking forward to the interview between Tucker/Putin (if there is one)

I would not expect a Tucker/Putin interview. I'm not saying it couldn't happen, I just don't expect it.

The #1 person inside Russia that Tucker has followed and done stories on is Snowden.

• Wartime spending
  
• Energy and commodity prices are still high by historical standards, even if they've come down from their insane peak in 2022. This boosts a country whose economy is largely built on the export of fossil energy. For example, Saudi Arabia's GDP is projected to grow by 3.5-4.4% in 2024, outapcing Russia's 2.6%.
  
• The global economy as a whole is in the mud due to the combination of high energy prices, disrupted supply chains, political tensions, sharply rising interest rates and a real estate crisis in China. This is worse for country which are deeply integrated into the global economy than for more autarkic countries. The sputtering Chinese economy is hurting Europe a ton (and Germany in particular).

Russia outpacing the GDP growth of the G7 in 2023 and potentially also 2024 isn't really indicative of any kind of fundamental competitiveness; instead, it's largely caused by favorable macroeconomic circumstances for Russia and unfavorable circumstances for the West.


What they can indeed gloat about is that the Western sanctions failed to bring their economy to its knees. Not more, not less.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Feb 5 2024 12:55am

Exactly

I mean I dug in and found a translation of Putins latest speech. At this point you're more likely to be informed by reading a goomshill post on a video game forum, than western media. Well, small fries compared to a war thunder forum

1) Wartime spending doesn’t boost GDP it changes its structure - less cars, more missiles/tanks - you still need to produce said stuff. Russia is far away from wartime economy. Civilian goods are well produced, majority of the people are blissfully unaware about what’s happening at the front besides generic “people die, nato, ukraine” or whatever TV feeds them.

2) Possibly. Commodity supply chains have been disrupted by G7 countries (not Russia or China) giving Russia more revenue (arguably in the short term) as big chunks of its GDP depends on commodity production compared to eg G7 GDP mix. This still plays into Russian hands. Russian commodities still flow to G7 countries.

3) Global economy is not in the mud, China is doing fine, growing 5% in 2023 and poised to grow 5% again in 2024 and 4.5% in 2025. For an economy of such size this is an incredible feat. The only real loser here is Germany which refuses to investigate NS2 and retake its lost sovereignity, eg by kicking out the likes of Annalena on the street with no unemployment allowance. I also see a rise in dangerous nationalism through eg the likes of AfD which is gaining votes by.

This post was edited by Malopox on Feb 5 2024 07:20am

1) Wartime spending and wartime economy are two different things. Wartime spending happens any time a government drastically increases public spending due to an ongoing or upcoming war. A prime example would the economic boom of Nazi Germany during the late 1930s. Russia is absolutely in wartime spending mode.


2) Commodity supply chains got disrupted, but make no mistake, unless Europe stopped all support for Ukraine, Russia was gonna close the gas tap anyway. They had already stopped all gas transit through Nordstream 1 based on the flimsiest of excuses at a time when Germany and other European countries were still very willing to receive that gas. Nordstream 2 had never gone online to begin with.

The messaging by Western leaders contributed to the panic on the markets and sent prices soaring even higher than they needed to be, it was moronic, I already said as much back in 2022. Just like I said that the oil sanctions would be toothless since it's a fungible commodity and global supply chains would just get shuffled around.

Still: this effect has mostly faded by now. Energy prices have come down from their peak since then, but remain on a relatively high level for a myriad of reasons which all have nothing to do with the fundamental strength of the Russian economy.


3) China has soaring youth unemployment and sits on a gigantic housing bubble, their government and central bank are barely able to stop it from bursting. Chinese imports remain very muted, which drags down export-heavy Western nations like Germany, but also affects places like Japan. Germany in particular has committed about a dozen different, horrible policy mistakes over the past 20 years which are now all coming home to roost, it's not like everything would be well and good if only they had more Russian gas.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Feb 5 2024 07:25am

Germany is one of the objective bigger losers of this war, it's not even debatable (excluding actual combatants). You guys traded cheap energy security, which allowed Germany to build a massive production edge for many years for what exactly? Having autistic teenagers steer your energy policy is also an issue but really the former is a much bigger shock.