With the purchasing power of the Russian ruble hitting the lowest point since March 2022, the economic toll of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine becomes glaring.
Russia's expanding spending on the war has fueled inflation, prompting Russia's Central Bank to hike its interest rate to the highest level since the
I would love to see the ruble continue to slide but I think a lot of the current weakness is Israel reducing tension in the Middle East, making lower oil prices more likely. Russia lives and dies on oil production at this point. We need to crash the price of oil and sustain it at a low point to kill the Russian currency.
It’s often been said that russia is a gas station masquerading as a country.
A gas station operated by gangsters masquerading as a country.
Did everything in Israel affect oil prices that much? Anecdotally I don’t remember fuel prices shifting significantly, and looking at data it doesn’t look like there was much of a response. Israel and its immediate surroundings aren’t the big oil producers of the region. Those are all on the other side of the Arabian peninsula. The skirmish with Iran is the closest the whole situation has come to actually touching the oil countries, I think.
I think it is because this signals there will be no more weapon launches to/from Iran. Iranian oil infrastructure would be on the short list of additional targets. Plus there’s always the risk of Iran closing the Persian Gulf.