1:58

the Ukrainian offensive

2:01

has ground to a standstill. It's more

2:03

or less a positional war right now. Getting

2:06

these small footholds has failed to translate into

2:08

a strategic breakthrough for Ukraine. It has

2:10

only forced the Russian troops to move to a new set

2:12

of defensive positions. To advance further,

2:15

the Ukrainian army must liberate

2:17

several more locations, each of which has

2:20

by now been fortified by the invading Russian

2:22

army. And again, the reason why

2:24

this hasn't reached strategic levels

2:26

is because, well, the west is once

2:28

again super slow with the letting weapons,

2:31

because everyone is afraid of escalation. And

2:33

that is a very stupid thing to do, because Ukraine

2:37

really blatantly needs more

2:39

guns. It's quite possible

2:41

the Ukrainian command might have a plan for

2:43

further attempts at the breakthrough, but

2:45

already next week, autumn rains are forecasted

2:48

in southern Ukraine, which will likely complicate

2:50

both maneuvering and bringing supplies to the front

2:52

lines. But in general, in total, about

2:55

Orychia. The AFU's offensive

2:58

in this theater is stuck within the Robotnye,

3:00

Novoprakovka and the Erboevhe triangle. While

3:03

Robotnye has been liberated in late August,

3:05

the assaults of Ukrainian units that reached

3:07

the outskirts of Novoprakivka have

3:09

all been deflected by the Russian troops in

3:11

this location. Fighting also continues

3:13

at the outskirts of Erboevhe, where it's

3:16

been happening since August, preventing the Ukrainian

3:18

troops from proceeding further east. The

3:20

Ukrainian command has diversified its assault tactics.

3:23

The offensive is mostly conducted by small infantry

3:25

units to bring armored machinery to the front line

3:28

before retreating to the rear. In cooperation

3:30

with artillery, infantrymen try to occupy

3:32

the Russian stronghold at a time to secure new

3:35

positions. This fairly

3:37

effective tactic has one significant disadvantage.

3:39

It does not permit the kind of deep breakthrough that

3:41

could disrupt the enemy's defense system. Another

3:44

disadvantage is the inevitable loss of manpower.

3:47

For these reasons, the AFU periodically

3:49

tries to break through the Russian defenses with small

3:51

mechanized units. But these attacks are

3:54

usually ineffective, while costly,

3:56

in terms of scarce equipment.

3:59

problem for the Ukrainian grouping has to do with

4:02

bringing supplies to the front line and evacuating

4:04

the wounded. Through the 10 km,

4:06

or about 6 miles, a wide

4:08

wedge carved out by the AFU between the

4:11

southern outskirts of Okhriv and Novoprakivka,

4:13

Ukrainian equipment cannot move unimpeded. It

4:16

comes under fire from artillery, anti-tank

4:18

missile systems and drones. This

4:20

prevents the Ukrainian army from accumulating sufficient

4:22

forces for extending the offensive. Of

4:24

course, similar problems arise with Russian equipment

4:27

in their own near rear. The

4:29

irony of the situation in this area

4:32

is that Ukrainian forward positions now

4:34

make ample use of the fortified Surovikin line,

4:37

erected by the Russian troops, but captured

4:39

since by the Ukrainians. This means

4:42

that the trenches and dugouts prepared by the Russian army

4:44

in the previous year now shelter Ukraine

4:46

assault teams. It's possible that the

4:48

AFU might eventually squeeze the Russian units

4:51

out of Novoprakivka and Vyrobove. Still

4:53

a free breakthrough into the Russian defense

4:56

remains unlikely. When the fall rains

4:58

finally make the local and paved roads unsuitable

5:00

for vehicles and equipment, conducting the offensive

5:03

will only get more difficult.

5:05

But now, Bakhmout.

5:06

After liberating Lyshivka and Andrievka

5:08

south of Bakhmout, the AFU ran into

5:11

a new defense line of the Russian armed forces which

5:13

runs through the Khorivka-Bakhmout

5:15

railway. The liberated villages themselves

5:17

are located in the low-lying area between hills.

5:21

This made defending them difficult for the Russian

5:23

troops, whose movements were visible to the enemy

5:25

who occupied the hills to the west, even without

5:27

having to use reconnaissance rounds. And now

5:30

Ukrainian assault groups are in a similar

5:32

situation. Russian artillery,

5:34

connected by scouts from the hills east of Lyshivka,

5:37

is striking at the AFU units near the railroad.

5:40

Judging by the published videos, Ukrainian

5:42

troops are trying to get to the other side of the railroad

5:44

near Andrievka. For this new offensive

5:47

to have any chance of success, the Ukrainian armed

5:49

forces will probably have to storm Khurjumimovka

5:52

and Otrayevka, the villages immediately

5:54

south. And

5:57

that's about it. Again, it's turned into positional.

6:01

But these are the best updates of the

6:03

front lines that I have at this moment. However,

6:06

the main study of today, and sorry that was my vape

6:08

just falling over, I have switched

6:10

over from these one-time used vapes to a proper

6:12

one which costs way less because I'm trying to save

6:15

money because again, advertisement

6:18

time, like I have to do some editing so that you guys,

6:21

yeah I'm planning to get married after all and that's

6:24

gonna cost me a lot of money. I intend

6:27

to have a small set of money and then go

6:29

to honeymoon to the United States, visit Texas,

6:32

Texas and I hope to go to Las

6:34

Vegas and see the Grand Canyon too because I haven't

6:37

seen those things. So right now I'm just

6:39

saving up things and taking care of my own health. If

6:41

you want to help out please consider becoming our patron

6:43

on patreon.com or

6:46

just clicking the donate button on the eastern border.

6:49

You know, trying to stabilize the mill.

6:51

I have to do a lot of paperwork, I still

6:53

have to do my applications for the PhD

6:56

study somewhere and a lot of things

6:58

that I just need to do in general like EU

7:00

project and things

7:01

like that and I'm sick of that a bit,

7:03

so isn't that cheap?

7:05

I really would hope to be able

7:07

to, you know, put aside at

7:09

least some money like three,

7:12

four hundred euros each month to save

7:14

up for my wedding and I can't do that without their help.

7:16

So if you're interested in helping me out please

7:19

do. But you know, like

7:21

I said, if you can't don't, it's fine.

7:24

I'm not that good of a show at least. I don't think

7:26

so for you to be, you know, going

7:28

all out of your way but thanks to all your support

7:30

in any ways. You're the best guys and I

7:33

really really appreciate your help. But that's

7:35

it for the ads because I really hate monetizing

7:37

my show but you know it is what it is. What

7:39

I really want to talk about is how Russia

7:41

is now kind of talking about their new budget

7:44

for the next year and a lot of people

7:46

are already talking because key

7:48

of economics school, they

7:51

have one kind of like Swedish economic school but in

7:53

Kiev they have been posting around

7:55

the number of 15 billion

7:58

dollars. It's

8:00

kind of like they want to show why these

8:03

sanctions that the EU and the United

8:05

States Put on Russia about

8:07

the maximum oil price isn't working But

8:11

it's kind of like these numbers are weird because they've published

8:13

them in a weird way because they're Ukrainians and their

8:15

English might not be As well, basically

8:18

what people say is that Russia is gonna get 15

8:21

billion dollars more than

8:23

they got last year However,

8:25

that is not the case since I've been following

8:28

the Russian budgets quite closely and they

8:30

already had a 40% Loss

8:32

in comparison to the last year and even

8:35

if they managed to get a 15 per 15 billion dollar

8:40

Increase in the next year that still means

8:42

they're gonna get less than last year So it's just

8:44

impossible what I'd rather from everything

8:46

is that the key of School of Economics

8:48

the 15 billion dollar Thing that they're

8:51

staying around is like Russia is getting 15

8:53

billion dollars more Than

8:56

they would have gotten if the price

8:59

like price a cap would

9:01

have worked but the price cap

9:04

on oil because never worked because Russians

9:07

are finding counterparts and

9:09

business partners all over the world and They

9:13

are basically trading with them They're using

9:15

insurance agencies for their oil tankers because

9:17

obviously every oil tanker needs to be insured Because

9:20

of natural catastrophes and disasters you

9:22

simply kind of move oil in tanker from one

9:24

one position to another If

9:27

it's not insured and as the gas

9:29

the pipelines are shut down right now because

9:31

you was trying to cut it off Cut itself off

9:33

from Russian oil So now they're selling it to

9:35

the east where they don't have the pipelines,

9:38

but they have like ship routes So they're

9:40

just doing that through third parties a lot

9:42

of them come from the Middle East Especially

9:45

United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia

9:48

and also of course India and China So

9:50

the best thing to do which by the way United States

9:52

are doing I have to say something

9:54

good about Biden here They're moving diplomats

9:57

over there to ensure that these counterparts

10:00

of the Russian side

10:02

are being

10:04

put to some sort of scrutiny so

10:07

that they wouldn't do this in the future, which is good. However,

10:10

yeah, these $15 billion that you hear,

10:12

that's a calculation of

10:14

how much more Russia is earning

10:17

in comparison to what they would earn

10:20

if this price cap

10:22

would have worked. But price cap would

10:24

have never worked. It has caught into their budget

10:26

earnings and everything. But in general,

10:29

if you look at this in total, life

10:32

always finds a way and smuggling always

10:34

exists and we all know how business works. Well,

10:36

at least you guys know, most people in my

10:38

country in Latvia, they don't know, so

10:41

they always think that it's always so

10:43

awesome to run a small business, which it is not.

10:47

Especially once you're dealing with media business, but it's a whole

10:49

different story. Basically,

10:52

for people who have no idea how economy

10:54

works, this report

10:56

written by Kiev School of Economics, which

10:58

wasn't written in the best of English, is

11:01

just showing that Russia is making glorious

11:03

profits, which they're not. They're absolutely

11:05

not. They're making a loss, which

11:08

is why their predictions for the next year's

11:10

budget in comparison to what

11:12

Michoostian, their prime minister,

11:14

who used to be a financier, but he says about all the

11:16

situation, it's all the more surprising.

11:19

Because if you look at this whole situation

11:21

with Russia, they have this problem

11:23

where they have a gasoline deficit, a gasoline shortage.

11:27

So what's happening is that they used

11:29

to sell their raw oil abroad

11:31

and then buy in some gasoline and then

11:33

produce some gasoline in themselves. But

11:36

right now, as it's war, they

11:38

use gasoline primarily for the military,

11:41

so their production capacities have

11:43

not increased. Therefore, there's a massive shortage

11:45

of gasoline for civilian needs, which

11:48

hurts, by the way, the agricultural

11:51

industry the most, since after all,

11:53

tanks run on diesel. You know,

11:55

what else runs on diesel? Tractors and combines,

11:58

all the stuff that you need to produce. agricultural

12:01

goods. Therefore, currently,

12:03

the price for diesel has spiked up sky

12:06

high in Russia and there's little

12:08

lack of it and also some sorts of gasoline.

12:11

By the way, this might be fun for you EU

12:13

people and maybe some US people as well,

12:16

but they still use octane

12:18

number 92, so they use the

12:21

92nd gasoline and 95th one is

12:23

really, really awesome. Just

12:25

a side note, 95th is the minimum you

12:28

can get inside the EU and then

12:30

98th is the one that we use for everything and then the

12:32

gas like diesel is a special

12:34

sort of beast. But like 92nd

12:36

gasoline is considered, we don't

12:38

even sell that here, especially if it's leaded, so

12:41

it is what it is. Currently,

12:43

by the way, gasoline in Latvia, at

12:46

least that's what I can speak about, stands

12:48

at about 1 euro and 12 cents per

12:50

liter, which would be about 4.5

12:52

dollars per gallon. We

12:55

measure that for liters, you know.

12:57

In Russia, the price of

13:00

92nd gasoline has increased from 49.1 rubles

13:05

in 2021 to 56.8 rubles

13:08

per liter right now, which

13:10

means it basically costs about 56 cents

13:13

a liter or like 2 dollars

13:15

and 10 cents or about 2 euros

13:17

per gallon. Because

13:21

the sense, if I say sense, I mean euros,

13:23

I'm just saying, because you know, you can just divide

13:25

it because it's close to like, currently

13:28

the thing with dollar is close to 100

13:30

rubles per dollar and it's like over 100 rubles

13:33

per euro, so like 56

13:35

rubles per liter is about 56 cents, 55

13:39

cents per liter, which is super cheap. However,

13:42

it's going up and because the Russian population earns

13:44

much less than we do in the West, that

13:46

hits their pockets and that also hurts their inflation

13:49

a lot. As you see, Russian

13:52

government, due to their corruption

13:54

schemes and how they have basically a state

13:56

monopoly on their oil and

13:58

all natural resources, four

14:00

companies in Russia who do all the oil

14:02

business and all the gas business, right? And

14:05

they're all like state funded, they have relations with state,

14:08

Gazprom and Rosnev, which I'll just do the main ones.

14:11

But it's like, it's basically a state monopoly on

14:13

gasoline there so

14:16

far, so that Putin would keep like good appearances

14:18

up and that Putin would keep, you know, some

14:21

sense of, you know, people

14:24

being living prosperous lives and everything. There

14:26

have been massive subsidies going on to

14:29

these people, you know, who produce oil and gas

14:31

and there's of course massive corruption. However,

14:33

there have been massive subsidies and right now,

14:36

well, right now these subsidies are gone and

14:38

I'll tell you why just in a second. But currently subsidies,

14:42

massive, massive, damping

14:44

subsidies have gone

14:47

right now. So the people who

14:49

make the oil and then gasoline

14:51

or petrol for British

14:54

from the oil, you know, they have just decided

14:56

to, you know, let the market loose and finally

14:59

start charging more. But seeing

15:01

as the average Russian salary

15:03

is way lower than here. Again,

15:05

let me remind you that $350 per month is considered a really

15:08

good salary in Russia. Moscow

15:12

makes, like average person in Moscow makes

15:14

about, you know, 40,000 rubles is considered a

15:17

good salary and 40,000 rubles is what, 400

15:19

euros? So

15:24

in regions, $350 would be considered awesome. So

15:29

obviously, but they're

15:31

not very rich and their reliance on imported

15:33

goods means that they also overpay

15:36

for everything and that they're all massively

15:38

credited. About 63%

15:41

of households have a lot

15:44

of loans and about 17% of

15:46

households have are spending about 53%

15:50

of their income to just to manage their loans. Just

15:52

saying. So it's a situation there which is not

15:55

there for the long run, which is why Putin also kind

15:57

of needed this war because his economy is quite

15:59

a bit. So what's

16:01

happening is that subsidies

16:04

are gone, gasoline is going up, diesel

16:07

is just out of reach for most

16:09

of agricultural business and even after

16:11

the so-called export ban, well

16:14

nothing really changes, the prices still go

16:16

up because again you might prohibit

16:18

exporting gasoline to other countries but

16:21

if your tanks and your vehicles take up all

16:23

of it and you have no incentives to increase production

16:26

of course the prices will go up which

16:29

is surprising since you know just

16:31

two days ago Mr Vladimir Putin in

16:34

his 2050 year of ruling in the Russian

16:36

Federation decided to learn something

16:38

about basic economical rules which

16:40

is he was confused about the numbers

16:43

I mentioned earlier in this episode where I spoke

16:45

about how the price of gasoline has increased and

16:47

he said well despite the fact that there is no

16:49

the export ban why is the prices increasing

16:52

this is confusing and he seemed genuinely surprised.

16:55

Well the prices are increasing because you have a monopoly

16:57

situation in the market where

17:00

you only have had a single supplier well

17:02

four companies technically which

17:05

are all like government sponsored, government

17:07

owned and you have been giving them massive subsidies

17:09

to keep the oil prices low just

17:12

so you know just so the local

17:14

people could buy it because competitive market

17:16

prices which means the ones that are like out

17:18

there in the EU would absolutely

17:21

absolutely kill the car and vehicle

17:23

market inside of Russia because no one would be able to

17:25

drive anywhere and if you haven't noticed Russia

17:28

is such a huge country that a lot of people

17:30

need to drive in a lot of places a lot of time

17:33

I mean it's huge it's

17:35

so like inside of Europe inside Europe okay

17:38

we can we can choose to drive our bicycles and whatever

17:40

but if you try to bicycle from st. Petersburg

17:42

to Moscow or even worst of Vladivostok

17:45

well have fun doing months of that stuff

17:48

that's why they also have like a great internal aerospace

17:50

market and everything but the

17:52

reason why these subsidies are gone and why people are

17:54

feeling this is because yeah

17:57

Russia has like more than doubled its war

17:59

budget It used to be like 5 trillion

18:02

rubles and I think they have doubled

18:04

it like 2.2, 2.3, like 2

18:07

with something. I haven't seen the budget itself

18:09

but I've seen all the adequate numbers and analysis.

18:12

So their weapons spending and their military

18:14

budget spending is more than doubling. So

18:17

if anyone in your government tells you that

18:20

you're trying to get Russia to talk or something,

18:22

understand that Russia doesn't want to talk at this point at all. Each

18:25

country more than doubles, like 2.2,

18:29

2.3, times increase their weapons spending and

18:32

then when it wants to sit down to a table.

18:35

No, this is a statement. This is a statement that Putin

18:37

wants to get a better position, that he

18:40

is not ending the war anytime soon, that

18:42

he's ready to blast off people's

18:44

lives and property and do whatever it takes

18:46

to get into a better position. Now

18:49

however, this is not a time for

18:51

gloom and doom. If you understand

18:53

that Russia started this war with already

18:55

existing stockpiles of tanks and

18:57

ammunition and everything and

19:00

a lot of this equipment is going to go to cover

19:02

for example pensions and

19:04

premiums for soldiers, families

19:07

who died this year and Russia will

19:09

most likely spend a lot of this money to bring

19:11

up their equipment in order so that people have better

19:14

rations, that they have more ammo, basic

19:16

needs. They have been provided guns but

19:19

everyday daily needs are just gone. This

19:22

does not mean that they will increase their production twofold

19:24

or anything like that. Also note that

19:26

approximately half of this, if not more, will

19:28

get stolen to do totally ever

19:31

present and complete corruption. However

19:35

this might improve the situation

19:37

at the front for the basic Russian soldier

19:39

because again one thing to

19:41

remember why everything is not horrible

19:43

at this point is because Russia is already using

19:46

everything that they have except nuclear weapons

19:48

which might actually not work at this point on

19:50

the front lines.

19:51

Therefore

19:52

if they double the budget remember that

19:55

about one budget of this year will get

19:57

stolen and then some soldiers will have

19:59

like warm socks and something but

20:01

surely yes something will go to produce more tanks more

20:03

to the more something what this shows is

20:05

that putin is determined to make the next year

20:08

even more important than this one and

20:10

uh... bush for some specific reason the front

20:12

lines leaflet he hopes to see however

20:15

there's a problem here where which is what i'm talking

20:18

about the budget in depth at this point and i

20:20

don't even know when economy in economical

20:22

issues became a specialty but uh... i've

20:24

learned a lot since you know political philosophy of history

20:27

title for a close economy and uh...

20:30

study a lot of that way see there's a little

20:32

problem with everything else in the budget most

20:35

of the numbers of it is that i have up but

20:37

not them if you look at the real

20:39

numbers of what they predicted last year uh...

20:41

in the last year's budget like that the budget

20:43

for this year which is made last year predictably

20:47

six percent growth of the russian economy average

20:50

inflation of five percent which is now seventeen

20:52

percent in all sorts of goodies they

20:55

have been lying constantly in their continuing to

20:57

do so and right now that increase

21:00

like the putin has signed off on this plan

21:02

but that the numbers don't add up but

21:05

they do add up is the fact that they have called the subsidies

21:07

for oil producers and

21:09

all producers are now taking it out on the consumer

21:13

and they will do so until order from

21:15

kremlin don't come up and doesn't say to them

21:18

okay guys this might cause too much of social

21:20

anxiety

21:21

so stop doing that they

21:23

predict an increase of thirty percent

21:26

of their tax income somehow next year

21:29

i wonder how they will do this when

21:31

the budget when they have experienced a massive brain

21:34

drain and a lot of their working population

21:36

have you know just literally died

21:39

or just ran away they also

21:41

predict somehow that uh... oil

21:44

prices will continue to go up which

21:46

is kind of funny since if you think about it i'm

21:48

reading this oil price dot com which is the industry

21:50

magazine here show

21:53

you a back door here and right now even

21:55

the saudis have understood that you know if oil

21:57

costs like brand brand costs up

21:59

for a barrel about $100 that's

22:02

harming the economy because economies are really

22:04

bad and if you overcharge for oil that's

22:06

just a short term gain and long term hurts everyone

22:08

so the oil prices are gonna go down

22:11

especially knowing that Russia sells urals

22:14

brand of oil not Brent and urals

22:16

is like bit more crude bit more worse but

22:19

they sell that one which always cost a bit less than

22:21

Brent and Russia's budget now fluctuates

22:23

on the fact that their own urals are gonna

22:26

cost over a hundred even though right

22:28

now Brent cost 95 and the Roth

22:30

cost less than that and they the only people

22:32

that they can sell it to even without like

22:34

the price gauge maximum are Eastern

22:36

countries like India and

22:39

China and North Korea which demand

22:41

a massive massive massive discount

22:44

so that's a mess the country

22:46

here is getting poorer taxes are being

22:48

evaded as much as they can yet they predict

22:51

a 30% increase in income and they

22:53

just double their numbers willy-nilly and that's not even

22:56

cutting in corruption so

22:58

Vladimir Milov

23:00

of Novine's theme whom I consulted

23:02

with while making this episode told me that

23:05

yeah he has no idea how

23:07

these numbers can even like be functioning there basically

23:09

the whole budget plan is created for a single actor

23:12

for Vladimir Putin himself but

23:14

the budget does not look real and

23:17

they're again trying to I know as

23:19

we say in this region stuff macaroni's

23:21

on someone's ears or you know freedom

23:24

false information which is good for us but

23:26

bad for them because if you look

23:28

at it carefully yeah no

23:31

Russia definitely at least put in once make a

23:33

statement by funding military insanely

23:37

but they just have no money

23:39

that's the problem here and I'm not talking

23:41

about you know some some honestly made

23:44

money no just that turns out turns

23:46

out that if you switch your companies

23:48

from producing something that has value in the market

23:50

that can produce more goods to warp

23:53

expenditures then that's kind of bad I mean

23:55

even Lockheed Martin Raytheon all these companies

23:58

right Boeing and

23:59

then

23:59

a European and Airbus. Airbus

24:02

whatever by the way because I'm from EU so

24:04

go Airbus. Yeah

24:07

they might produce military stuff right. They

24:10

might produce you know airplanes and fire planes

24:12

and rockets and whatever but they also produce civilian

24:14

things you know things that produce value

24:17

added they produce value. If

24:20

your factory produces a tractor

24:23

then the tractor will work and produce value

24:25

increase it because it'll carve a drain or something

24:28

but if you make a rocket then okay

24:30

you can use it for scientific missions which also

24:32

produces value by you know in the form of knowledge

24:35

which is good there's some overlap but

24:37

if your rockets only are supposed to be

24:39

inaccurately striking Ukrainian civilians

24:42

and then they explode then yeah

24:44

you're technically can write into your value

24:46

adder you can write into your GDP

24:48

modules or automatic product

24:50

modules a fact that you know you've produced some

24:53

sort of value but the only thing you've produced is something

24:55

that you shoot at other thing and you decrease

24:57

your GDP and hopefully

25:00

with a strike reduce other sides of GDP

25:02

more in the end it's

25:04

all weird and again you

25:06

know the worst part is that I'm looking at these budget

25:08

numbers and looking at how the west looks at them and uh

25:12

just feels kind of sad that sometimes you

25:14

know everyone else is just catching up even behind

25:17

me when it comes to the fact about the help Ukraine

25:19

really needs and the fact that there's another governmental

25:22

shutdown plan in the United States not

25:25

the right time for this guy is not the right time

25:28

yeah see you back in October and

25:31

uh well hope that you at least

25:33

my finance nerds and economy nerds I know that

25:35

there's a bunch of you out there enjoyed this episode

25:38

again like in the middle segment please consider becoming our

25:40

patron or donating to the eastern border

25:42

of e but uh yeah

25:44

we'll be back as I as I get better numbers

25:47

and there's the situation the fronting improves

25:49

or worse and or you know the

25:51

news in general

25:53

but for now

25:54

that's the Daniec to our issue

25:56

and as always remember

25:58

happiness is mandatory