The Russian economy is sliding further and further into the pit. Russia's fans point to the excellent value of the ruble.

The official ruble rate isn't all that bad. The only question is: who wants rubles anymore?

There's no market for them, so any rate is good.

What do you think you can buy with the Russian ruble?

Looking at that and then forming an opinion about the Russian economy is like cooking spaghetti, taking out a strand, and then determining the strength of the Russian economy based on the length of that strand.

A much better indicator is the mortgage interest rate. It has now surpassed 28%.

It's clear that buying a house with borrowed money in Russia is now virtually impossible. The number of houses sold has therefore fallen sharply. This has consequential consequences for the economy. After all, when someone buys a house, they often also convert renovations and items worth a year's salary. If relatively few people move, turnover will also lag.

No new kitchens, new appliances, new furniture, etc. So, it's the slow season for Russian shops as well.

Many pro-Russian people are also looking at supermarkets. They're still full of stuff. That's true. Russia can still obtain all its consumer goods from the West. The shops are full, but many consumers can only look at them because they no longer have the money to buy them. These full shops are therefore a false sense of wealth.

Russian revenues from the oil and gas sector are the country's main source of income, and those revenues are declining rapidly, while the war is costing ever more. Oil production already has to be reduced because the storage tanks are full and the demand for Russian oil is drying up.

Cutting back production, and especially closing production, is extremely bad for the equipment and pipelines. This also applies to the wells from which gas is produced. If you stop production, you essentially have to close the well and then open a new one. The future costs for Russia will therefore be enormous, because Ukraine's attacks on oil and gas production are successful and therefore extremely expensive for Russia.

The only question, in fact, is: for how much longer? How long can and will Russia continue this? When will there be so much discontent that people will revolt? We'll know when that day finally arrives. It will remain invisible until the day before. Such a tipping point is simply impossible to predict.

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