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Russians Are Becoming FURIOUS About Putin’s War

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There's a myth about Russia that I've

been hearing for a very long time and

it's an aspect of the overall myth of

Russian invincibility. The idea that

Russia is an undefeatable nation, that

Russian people are so resilient, so

strong in the face of hardship, that

nothing could ever be bad enough for

them to actually quit or actually

surrender or actually demand changes.

And the aspect of this myth that I want

to explore today is something that's

repeated a lot when people say that

Ukrainian strikes can never actually be

successful in breaking the will of the

Russian people or making the Russian

people frustrated enough to actually

demand changes from their own

government. This conversation is very

important to have today because

currently Ukraine is actively striking

Russian infrastructure targets primarily

energy targets but also other sorts of

targets trying to make the Russian

people actually feel the weight of the

war in a way they never have before.

Right now there are massive gasoline

shortages throughout Russia and some

people are having to wait in line for up

to 8 hours just to get a 2 L ration of

gasoline. There are other problems

across Russia. There are problems with

air transit as Russian airports are

constantly being shut down and Russia is

about to enter the winter where they are

having massive energy shortages already

which could create severe problems. What

we need to examine though is if there's

even a point to all of this. Can these

types of attacks actually be successful?

Can Ukraine successfully change the

minds of the Russian people and turn

their attitude away from supporting the

war and towards demanding an end to the

war? On the surface, you would think the

answers to these questions would be

obvious, especially when you consider

the scale of the carnage that Ukraine is

able to inflict upon the Russian

economy. The fact that that carnage is

being sustained for a long period of

time, and the fact that that carnage is

getting worse, not getting better. Even

in Western societies, in response to

very minor things like minor rises in

gas prices or minor rises in egg prices,

you will often see people emotionally

demanding immediate political change.

And my point is not to say that all of

those things are completely irrelevant,

but when you consider the scale of those

things and how much they impact people's

lives compared to the scale of things

that people in Russia are experiencing,

it would seem obvious that any human

being would have a strong reaction to

this kind of pressure. However, in

Russia's case, people will plead to

social differences and they will

actually do something that is called

special pleading where they will argue

that Russia's case is special, that

Russia is not subject to the same

economic rules or the same psychological

rules that apply to everybody else

because Russia has such a history of

hardship that these things just don't

apply. However, as you'll see in this

video, that understanding of Russian

society is completely wrong. And we can

know it's completely wrong for several

reasons. First of all, because the

Russian government has done everything

they can to make the Russian people feel

like they are not actually undergoing

hardship or if they are, that it's much

worse in other countries. And second of

all, we can know that it's not true

because all of these conclusions are

based on a very selective understanding

of Russian history. A lot of people make

the mistake of looking at Russian

history and pointing out the hardships,

but neglecting to point out the

revolutions that came in response to

those hardships. For example, people

will point out that the Russians lived

under the Zars, who were just absolutely

brutal. And they'll say, "Well, they're

used to living under the Zars. They will

tolerate just about anything." And

they'll also say, "Well, the Russians

lived under the Soviet Union, and they

experienced so many terrible aspects of

the Soviet Union. We're talking about

goologs, famines, disease, political

repression, and things of that sort. And

they'll say, because the Russians have

this in their history, what they

experience under Vladimir Putin is

nothing in comparison. And so, why would

we ever believe the Russians would

actually stand up? However, the actual

reality is that there is a pattern to

Russian history. And Vladimir Putin has

very much been responding to this

pattern, and he's very much afraid of

it. And this pattern is that the

peasantry does not tolerate abuses from

their government forever. The peasantry

has demonstrated several times in

Russian history that they are willing to

rise up and demand changes. They are

willing to overthrow leaders and they

are willing to commit to social changes

when things don't go their way. We see

this because the Russian Empire

collapsed and the Soviet Union in fact

collapsed and that went in several

stages. First, the Soviet Union demanded

changes from the Stalinist era of purges

and stuff like that. And they demanded a

better society and even that was not

enough. The Soviet Union ultimately

disintegrated largely because of

internal economic pressure because the

people were frustrated with what their

government was doing and all of the

individual republics decided to go their

separate ways because they no longer

believed in the Soviet system. So the

idea that people within the Russian or

the Soviet sphere of the world simply

never rise up and overthrow their

governments is completely historically

false. Now nobody is more aware of the

fact that this myth is false than the

Russians themselves and also the

Ukrainians. And that explains a lot of

what we have seen from both Russia and

Ukraine throughout the war. Ukraine is

attacking Russia's economy, not because

they don't think it will ever work, but

because as a post-siet country

themselves, they understand exactly what

it feels like to be a citizen under a

repressive government. And they

understand exactly what it takes to get

those citizens to finally stand up,

revolt, and demand independence or

demand changes. They themselves again

have done that. And Russia for their

part also completely understands that

this is a massive possibility. And this

is why they have sought to control their

society the way they do. As we all know,

as soon as the war in Ukraine started,

millions of Russian citizens fled their

own country. And this is the exact

opposite of a people who will just lie

down and take anything that their

government is going to dish at them.

These people fled their country for the

exact reason that they knew pain was

coming and they actively wanted to avoid

it. And at that time, leaving the

country with was the path of least

resistance to get that. That has since

gotten harder because Russia actively

patrols their borders to prevent young

men from leaving. But it remains the

same psychology, although the path of

least resistance has now potentially

changed. We've also seen Russia respond

to people wanting to take the path of

least resistance in several ways. Russia

has cracked down on free speech since

they started the war in Ukraine so that

people cannot talk against the war or

what they call the special military

operation. This isn't just denial. It is

an attempt by Russia to control the

thinking of the populace. They know they

cannot control the entire populace, but

they want to control enough of them to

prevent a critical mass from forming

that could actually come out in

opposition against what they're doing.

And this is not something that

governments do because they are so

convinced the people will just lie down

and take whatever they dish. This is

something that governments do because

they are terrified that the people will

actually do exactly the opposite of

that. There are so many other examples

that we could cite that show that far

from having an attitude of bravado and

fearlessness when it comes to his own

citizens, Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin

regime in general are actually very

paranoid of their own people. We see

this at a high level just in the fact

that Russia has so much internal

propaganda trying to influence the way

its people think because they know they

have to do that. They have to try to win

the people over to their side if

possible because if the people are

against them, they can indeed demand and

they can indeed make changes. We also

see very clear examples of this in the

paranoia that is implicit, actually

probably explicit, whenever a Russian

elite falls out of a window or meets

their end in another way. Because you

don't just send elites to their death

for no reason. You send elites to their

death because you are terrified that

they know too much. They have too much

power and they can potentially

accumulate resources or people to

themselves to challenge you in some way.

And to ensure that that never happens,

you take those elites out. Not just to

take them out, but also to threaten the

other elites. Again, it is not exactly a

show of I don't think I could ever be

overthrown. It actually implies you're

paranoid of that exact result. And we

also see this very clearly in the way

that Vladimir Putin has approached

filling the Russian military even for

the war against Ukraine where the last

thing that he has been willing to rely

on is patriotism.

Very notably, very explicitly, Vladimir

Putin has not relied on conscription or

mobilization to force young Russian men

to go to the front lines against their

will. Instead, he has focused on tactics

of deceiving people to go to the front

lines, usually through large military

paychecks. And they might tell them that

they're going to rear areas and then

send them to the front lines. But they

are very unwilling to grab Russian men

off the streets and put them on the

front lines. And this is because they

know better than we do that if they were

to do this, the fabric of Russian

society could unravel far quicker than

we might even imagine. So instead, they

have resorted to bribing people with

large paychecks. Not just to get them to

go voluntarily and to reduce a lot of

the effects because a lot of Russians

will say, "Well, they had it coming to

them because they got paid a lot of

money for it." But they also do this to

put a lot of money into the Russian

society so that the Russian people

artificially feel like things are going

better than they actually are. There are

constant surveys that show a large

portion of Russians still support the

war, which are hard to believe for a lot

of reasons. Number one, because if you

said anything else, who knows what the

government would do to you. But to the

extent that these surveys are

legitimate, and to a large degree they

probably are, there are a lot of

Russians who want to support the war and

think it's a good thing, that's because

the Russians have been tricked into

thinking that the war has been good for

them economically. It's very similar to

how in the United States a lot of people

kind of jokingly in reference to World

War II will say, "You know what we

really need for our economy is another

war." Because during World War II,

things were just so good and it kind of

brought us out of the depression and

things like that. They didn't realize

that things weren't actually that good.

The only reason our economy boomed after

World War II was because every other

major economy on Earth was devastated by

firebombings and things like that. And

so we had a monopoly on manufacturing

for quite a while and that caused us to

rise to the top. That sidebar aside,

it's similar with the Russian economy

and the war in Ukraine. Russia has

worked to create an artificial sense of

prosperity around this war. That most of

the Russian people are not connecting

the dots on. They think somehow that

their GDP has grown even though their

country has been heavily sanctioned.

Therefore, they have lost the majority

of their revenue through oil and gas.

And even if you believe oil and gas

revenues are doing better than a lot of

people say, it would be crazy to argue

that Russia is actually doing better

with less revenue than they had prior to

the war. Nevertheless, a lot of Russians

believe this because through military

spending, Vladimir Putin has put a lot

of money into the Russian economy that

he saved up over a very long period of

time prior to the war. And he has also

funded the war through inflation, a

mechanism that most Russians don't

understand, which causes the economics

to become terrible, but people might

temporarily feel rather rich. And all of

this is an attempt to rather than making

the Russian people feel the cost of the

war, make the Russian people feel like

the war is actually improving their

lives. Because Vladimir Putin knows that

if the Russian people feel the cost of

the war, they will almost certainly turn

against him. All of this though is a

very big problem for Vladimir Putin

today because the problem with

artificial perceptions is you can only

keep them up for so long. And if you

don't achieve the goal of the artificial

perception and you're not able to

convert the artificial perception into a

real durable advantage,

everything will eventually fall out from

under your feet. And that is what Russia

is now facing today. Russia is facing a

crisis on every front, on a military

front, but primarily on an economic

front. And they're facing that crisis

for several reasons. They're facing it

because the savings account that they

built up to get them this far has

largely, if not completely, run out and

it is only being sustained by massive

inflation. But they are also in an

economic crisis because of the pressure

of Ukraine who I already mentioned at

the beginning of this video has been

intentionally ramping up their strikes

on the Russian economy on Russian

infrastructure particularly oil and gas

targets to make the average Russian

person feel the effects of the war in a

way that they never have before. The

timing of that might not be a

coincidence. Due to all of this,

Vladimir Putin seems to realize that it

is going to be increasingly difficult

for him to keep the Russian people on

his side and therefore to keep his power

and potentially even to keep his own

life. And because of that, we have seen

a whole lot of changes in Vladimir Putin

and his tactics domestically over the

past year or so, but especially ramping

up over the past several months. We have

seen, for example, and I've talked about

it in other videos on this channel, a

lot of discussions of purges within the

Russian military, a lot of discussions

of potential coups, which I have argued

are an attempt by Vladimir Putin to kind

of root out disloyal elements because

these discussions have been so public.

And all of this looks like an effort for

Vladimir Putin to try to get control of

the elites in a way that he has never

had to, at least up to this point in the

war. Up to this point in the war, of

course, he has had people falling out of

windows and things like that, but we

have never seen anything this explicit

that looks this desperate and shows this

much fear in Vladimir Putin. We have

also seen Vladimir Putin have to go to

his people and basically make

concessions about the war in Ukraine to

his people, at least publicly. Who knows

if he will actually make those

concessions, but he definitely felt

compelled to promise them. In

particular, he felt compelled to promise

his people that the Russian military

budget would be lowered next year, which

implies a lot of things. First of all,

the economy is a real problem despite

what Russia says. Second of all, the

Russian people know that the economy is

a problem and they know that it's

because of the war. And third of all,

Vladimir Putin fears that push back

enough that he felt compelled to throw

them a bone. Vladimir Putin knows that

the Russian people will only tolerate so

much. Unlike a lot of Western

commentators, Vladimir Putin knows that

his current country is a

postrevolutionary state and that they

have actually gone through several

revolutions. He knows that when things

start to impact people in a real way,

people respond to that. And that

response might look different than we

expect in Western countries. it might

seem to come a little slower, but that's

because the Russian people are starting

from a lower baseline and so it is

harder to hit them hard enough to where

they feel the impact in a more real way.

But once they feel that impact in a real

way, they respond to that impact. The

same way we here in America respond to

the impact of gas prices or rising egg

prices, Russian people are people, too.

And when they have impacts that finally

reach them directly,

that's when things can hit the fan.

Putin has again been trying to push this

off through artificial means as long as

he could. I mentioned the military

paychecks, which were largely stimulus

for the Russian economy. Vladimir Putin

has also been printing a lot of money to

fund subsidization of commodity prices

within Russia to try to keep food prices

low and to try to keep energy prices low

to try to keep the costs of all of the

basics that the average Russian person

actually buys as low as possible. The

Russian people don't realize that these

prices are actually rapidly increasing.

They're just increasing in the form of

currency depreciation rather than actual

price tags. Although sometimes even

still they are increasing in terms of

actual price tags too. All these

artificial means though have a hard

limit and that hard limit is now being

approached. The problem that Putin faces

is immense because the moment the

sherrod can no longer be kept up as we

see currently today with rising gas

prices, the Russian people don't have a

whole lot of margin to work with. Once

the Russian people start to feel a real

impact on their actual budgets, most of

them do not have enough spending money

left over after expenses to get

anything, they are used to that low

level of spending money. But because it

is so low, it can also go away rather

quickly. So as soon as we see food

prices increase or energy prices

increase or food prices increase because

energy prices have increased or any

other number of things that will very

quickly thin out Russian budgets to the

point that is no longer sustainable.

That then will cause the Russian people

to actually feel the impact of the war

for the first time in a way they haven't

felt it before. And there is no amount

of money the Russian government can

print today to make up for that. They've

already printed basically all that they

can print. Just for example, in some

statistics that I found, which are

always directionally correct, but never

precisely accurate. In poorer regions of

Russia, the average monthly income is

equivalent to only about $400.

That is a very low income, not a lot of

margin in it. And under current

conditions, Russians use about 45% of

that income to buy food. So about $180.

They will then use approximately $50 to

$60 a month on heat, $50 to $60 a month

on fuel in terms of gasoline, and they

will spend an additional maybe $40 to

$60 on rent. And when you add all of

those things up, you find that the

average Russian in a poorer region of

Russia might only have $50 to $100 of

their income left to work with. This is

a major problem because in recent days,

literally this month, it's not yet

reflected in the data, but we have seen

gas prices in some regions of Russia

increase from around $2.40

to prices that are approaching $3.80,

approaching $4. That is a huge increase.

And it's not only a direct increase when

people buy gasoline, but it also

increases the cost for everything else

they buy. That increase alone in those

regions can eat up all of the tiny

margin that the Russians living in those

regions had. And that will quickly cause

their lifestyle to change drastically.

Because when you go from being able to

buy a few luxuries to being able to buy

zero luxuries, that is a much bigger

difference than for example in America

when we go from being able to buy a huge

number of luxuries to a somewhat smaller

selection of luxuries. Now, $50 to $100

of spending money a month is a very

small margin. Not all of Russia has the

same margins. For example, in Moscow,

people make a lot more money per month,

but the costs are also a little higher.

They also have thin margins. Their

margins are more in the hundreds of

dollars per month, not in the tens of

dollars per month. But those margins are

still small enough that relatively small

impacts into the Russian economy can

have a major impact on people's

lifestyles. And that is really what

needs to be measured when it comes to

Russian people's resilience. You need to

measure things not in dollar amounts,

but you need to actually measure things

in hard impacts on people's lifestyle.

This is what a lot of people don't

realize. Russia has been working very

hard throughout the entire war to make

sure that Russian lifestyles don't

experience a large impact. And they've

been able to do this through a large

number of economic tricks. Because the

Russian baseline is so low, it doesn't

require a ton of money to keep the

average Russian's lifestyle consistent

with what they've always experienced.

Russia, though, is now running out of

these economic tricks. The average

Russian will now start to feel not just

a financial difference, but they will

start to feel a lifestyle difference.

And when you start measuring things in

terms of how long does it take me to get

a liter of gasoline that lasts me like 5

minutes, takes me 8 hours to get 5

minutes worth of gasoline. then you

start to realize the serious impacts

that could actually cause the Russian

people to start demanding some changes.

It is within this context that Ukraine

is continuing to ramp up the pressure on

the Russian economy through long range

strikes and where they have also just

recently introduced longrange strike

capabilities, the Flamingo missile,

which can take out more targets

directly, but also spread Russian air

defenses more thinly, meaning that

Ukraine will do an incrementally and

exponentially better job at damaging the

Russian economy. Not only this, while

this is happening, Russia is now

entering into the winter months, which

is also going to make things worse in

and of itself. And you can see how bad

things can really become. Now, in my

videos, I never really give a sense of

timing, and that's intentional cuz I

don't know the timing. I can only see

how things are directionally going, and

we'll see how things play out logically

over time, but we will never know

exactly what time the climax might come

and some big event might come. But as

you can see directionally, everything

lines up. Things are looking really bad

for Russia. Things are looking really

bad for the Russian economy. And

therefore, things are looking really bad

for Vladimir Putin. And this is in a

country that has experienced not just

one revolution, but several major

revolutions within the last century.

Things really could change. We need to

stop believing in the myth of Russian

invincibility. We need to remember that

Russian people are people, too. That

matters from every perspective possible,

including their ability to stand up to

immense pressure. If you watched this

far into the video, I hope it's not

presumptuous to say that you probably

got something of value out of it. Maybe

you heard new information. Maybe you

heard dots connected in a way that you

hadn't heard them connected before.

Maybe you heard things explained in a

way that made everything finally click.

Whatever the reason, if you got

something of value from this video,

would you please support this channel by

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a patron or a YouTube channel member. I

really appreciate all of my supporters.

You guys really do make it possible for

me to focus my energy on researching,

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videos, which takes a lot of work. But

all of my supporters are now allowing me

to do that much more frequently and much

more quickly. So, thank you for all you

do. It's making an impact on my life and

I hope in return I'm able to make an

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