(Ben) 本记明

This is terrible news for the world on so many levels

two furry animals are dancing in a room ALT: two furry animals are dancing in a room

Today on French media they are constantly talking about something else completely. Epic Furry!

Moscovia indeed.

Russian Industrial output for January 2026 decreased by 0,8% when compared to January 2025. When it comes to the military production output munitions are down 6%. Guidance systems are up only 9,8% and production of military vehicles is up 24,5%.

On regional budgets, veteran reintegration and others Thoughts about some of the current political events in Russia's regions.

New on Substack: a couple more words on regional deficits & some initial high-level findings on regional veteran training programs. Plus an assortment of interesting regional news that didn't make it into the Bear Market Brief.

Also available on the blog soon!
minczifra.substack.com/p/on-regiona...

So we’re looking at the Spanish example instead?

The king of Spain regularly seized more than the expected quinto (fifth) on the bullion imported annually on the silver fleet. It did allow the Habsburg to triumph from the French and the Ottoman but they failed to crush the Dutch revolt.

Russia’s consolidated budget deficit reached almost 4% of GDP in 2025 As Russian regions shoulder more war costs and social security funds are depleted, the consolidated budget balance has deteriorated far more than expected.

Russia Finance Ministry data now officially confirms: Russia's consolidated budget deficit was 3.9% of GDP in 2025 (8291.5 billion RUB).

More on the background: janiskluge.substack.com/p/russias-co...

Deep Inside Putin’s War Machine, the Pain Is Starting to Show As Russia’s war economy strains under growing pressure from sanctions and slumping revenues, even businesses in regions that have benefited from massive increases in military spending are feeling the ...

Russia's economic strains are seeping into its military firms and industrial regions, documents reviewed by @bloomberg.com show www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Robert Barrington - Corrupted Kingdom

Britain's Disappearing Integrity – And How We Can Get It Back

À paraître en juillet chez Profile Books

russias only fiber optic plant shut down for a year after Ukrainian strikes. russia gets fleece with prices, gone up 3 times, by China as an added bonus

ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/02/26/e...

Good find, thank you.

I'm increasingly looking at 1648 myself.

Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski:

My bet is that this war will end not like the Second World War but like the First World War — namely when Putin runs out of resources.

He’s already spent his national reserve fund. His last big pile of resources is the gold reserve. 1/2

‼️ Russia: “"There's no chance of having such a strong ruble." Gref predicted a sharp decline in the Russian currency.”

👉 Herman Gref is the CEO of Sberbank
👉 Sberbank is Majority Owned by the National Welfare Fund (NWF)
👉 Ministry of Finance controls the NWF

ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/02/26/n...

Russia’s Regions Post Largest-Ever Budget Deficit in 2025 - The Moscow Times Russia’s regions went on a splurge last year, running a record combined budget deficit of around 1.48 trillion rubles ($19.22 billion) as spending continued to outpace revenue growth, the Kommersant b...

www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/02/26/r...

DB is really the bottom feeder of the finance world which is saying a lot

Deutsche Bank arithmetic

Q: If "Epstein brought in more than $1mn in annual revenues" how much does Deutsche pay out in Epstein-related fines and settlements plus compliance failings linked to a Russian money-laundering scheme?

A: $225m

Google Threat Intelligence Group took down a massive global #hacking network. This 🇨🇳 based actor built a vast surveillance tool across the world. Cyber espionage group had operating since 2017

cloud.google.com/blog/topics/...

💥BREAKING: Viktor Orbán ordered the military deployed to guard “key energy facilities,” citing a possible Ukrainian “attack” to disrupt Hungary’s energy system. The move fuels fears of a staged national security emergency or false-flag incident ahead of the April 12 elections. This is really scary.

What’s next for Ukraine: Investment Ukraine will emerge from this war with enormous debt. The conventional wisdom treats that as an obstacle: investors weigh it before committing capital, and the burden slows the recovery before it star...

@cepr.org podcast with Maurice Obstfeld ( @piie.com and @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social ) and me about the reconstruction of #Ukraine

#UkrainianView #EconSky

cepr.org/multimedia/w...

And he will go down in history as Vladimir the Unready.

Putin the failure Four years to the day from the start of Putin’s full scale invasion of Ukraine, and close to 12 years since the annexation of Crimea, and it’s worthwhile looking back at how far from a win this is all...

Although the war in Ukraine is not over, four years in, one thing is clear: Putin has failed in Ukraine.

Great post by Timothy Ash.

timothyash.substack.com/p/putin-the-...

Fair point: Europeans should be reminded that each passing day of war allowing the Kremlin to destroy Ukraine a little further and kill a few more Ukrainians will cost them millions in the future.

It may not be totally by chance that net contributors to the EU budget tend to be pro-🇺🇦

Now I’m tempted. Learning Qazaq would be such a flex at work!

Fair

The electronic budget system shows a 4.82 trillion ruble deficit as of 20 February 2026

a camouflaged tank is driving down a grassy hill with trees in the background ALT: a camouflaged tank is driving down a grassy hill with trees in the background

Leopards coming to eat off your face!!!!

A 5% drop of the Russian labour force plus a drop of the investment capacity for labour-saving technologies and you get a shitty shitty econ situation. But it’s also the reason why the West should open its doors to Russian high-productivity migrants.

Yeah.

I think that the smartest move at the start of a war is a decapitating strike on a couple dozens of central bank and finance ministry technocrats. Left to their own devices, politicians would destroy any country in a couple of months.

Worth mentioning: no Kazakh on Duolingo.

The old definition of the oligarchs as the Kremlin’s cash cows has never been more apt.