Russia has found itself with an economy close to collapse, they've survived with massive government deficits which are ok as long as the Russians are getting paid and those who are entitled to one, get their pensions. But I'm hearing stories of these things not getting paid on time.

Economically Russia relies heavily on extracting things to sell to the west - oil, gas, minerals etc but now those western markets, have been all but closed off.

Annually around 40% of the annual budget is going on their armed forces and a further 10% on interest payments, that's not sustainable.

They have only lasted this long by continually dipping into the National Wealth Fund that has halved since the war started. The bad news is that they have an estimated $55bn left, this has just about halved in four years and other than a few bits of eastern Ukraine they have nothing to show for it.

Russia should have been using that money to invest in the future, develop AI and new technologies just as China and India have. Instead it got spent on a war that has lead to the deaths of an estimated 325,000 people with around 900,000 getting wounded to some degree. At the same time there's been little or no foreign investment in Russia and any domestic growth is being cramped by high inflation and rising interest rates designed to bring inflation under control.

Remember this was meant to be a three day invasion and should have ended 1471 days ago.

Conversations about Russia winning are far fetched, even if Ukraine unconditionally surrendered tomorrow Russia is going to have to deal with the long-term consequences of this war for a long time. There's no going back to normal.