Absolute must watch for the crowd saying taxpayers billions to Ukraine and sanctions have Russia backed into a corner

Absolute must watch for the crowd saying taxpayers billions to Ukraine and sanctions have Russia backed into a corner. Watch this reality check from Niall Ferguson

"Russian real wages have risen 22% since the war began. Unemployment simply doesn't exist. Disposable income is up 48%. Retail sales are 28% up."

"Consumer sentiment in Russia today is at all time highs. The sanctions regime has failed utterly, partly because no one was serious on either side of the Atlantic about cutting off revenues to Russia from its exports of fossil fuels, but also because of a massive hypocrisy by European states that have continued to export to Russia via third countries."

"I can assure you Europe's trade with Kyrgyzstan did not quadruple because Kyrgyzstan is going through an economic boom."

"And now that this project of supporting Ukraine is essentially a EU project, the most urgent thing that we need to discuss is how can Europe possibly match the current scale of armaments production on the other side?"

"Because if it fails to compensate for the fact that the US is no longer a source of aid to Ukraine, then I'm afraid, ultimately it's very hard for me as a historian to see another outcome of this conflict than yet another case where Russia, wasting the lives of Russian men and boys on a scale that is stunning to behold, nevertheless grinds out a victory."

From September 13, 2025, Victor Pinchuk Foundation and Yalta European Strategy (YES) held a discussion "Is Russia Winning or Collapsing?"

@nfergus (h/t to @rorotrader for the reminder)