Silicon Curtain
Silicon Bites Ep292 | 2026-02-23 | Russia is closed for business — the war economy that is devouring its own future. Russian opposition economist Vladimir Milov says Russia’s economy now runs on one fuel: state war spending. Businesses can’t invest, workers are disappearing, interest rates crush enterprise — and the Kremlin doesn’t seem to care. The result? A country technically functioning, but economically shutting down, abandoning the core tenets of a market economy, and shedding all vestiges of economic rationality. Russia hasn’t been sanctioned into isolation and oblivion. It’s reorganising itself into a permanent wartime command economy – destroying all the economic progress of the 1990s.
Ukraine’s economy has achieved an incredible recovery.
David Blair in the DT :
“Total GDP fell by nearly a quarter during 2022 alone, according to the World Bank. Since then, the economy has recovered, helped by higher defence spending and Ukraine’s success in reopening export routes across the Black Sea. But at around $190bn, Ukrainian GDP remains 5 per cent below its pre-invasion levels.
Repair and reconstruction:
“Russian forces have virtually destroyed cities such as Mariupol, while mounting almost daily strikes on Kyiv. So far, the total bill for repairing the damage and reconstructing Ukraine would be $588bn (£435bn), according to the UN.”
Putler’s losses are nowhere near enough :
“America and its allies responded to the invasion by imposing punitive sanctions on Russia, targeting the country’s energy exports. European countries have cut their purchases of Russian gas, capped the price of its oil and frozen any of the Kremlin’s assets that were in their banks.
In total, these measures have deprived Putin of at least $450bn (£330bn) since February 2022, comprising $154bn (£114bn) of lost tax revenues and $285bn (£210bn) of frozen state assets, according to a published estimate from the Foreign Office.”
Putler has the ZNPP under occupation. This is an almost overwhelmingly serious safety risk.
What can be done, when you have a gibberish-talking putlerist in charge at the WH?