Invasion Day +48 Hoggy estimates that today is the day from which sanctions will really start to hurt Putin. How? Because the estimates given at the start of the war by the Kremlin, (how newly sickening that word now sounds,) and by the western analysts, stated that Putin had a $640 billion war reserve stashed in his blood stained cellars. Add to that the forty-eight days of the war where he has taken in a further one billion dollars in oil and gas revenue per day, making $688 billion. Then divide that amount by the $14 billion it is estimated the war is costing Putin every day and that makes today, the 49th day of this terrible war the day the money runs out. But of course that will not worry Putin in the slightest, he will eely steal even more from his people who will increasingly start to suffer. There are no winners in war.
Why $14 billion a day? Have a look at the photo of a hole in a field from one of today's correspondents. That is a $300,000 hole. A Russian X-29 that missed. And that is the cost of just one missile. And Putin has launched hundred of these. A lot missed or misfired but sadly many did not. War is like a raging bonfire around which a gang of robbers hastily seek to burn their ill gotten gains as the police arrive at the garden gate. Everyone loses except the inferno but the robbers lose most of all.
How will this manifest itself? Sooner or later Putin will not be able to pay the state workers. Then there may well be trouble. Munitions will be harder to acquire as production slows as workers start to seek other sources of income. Russia is self-sufficient in power and food so no-one should starve but financial discontent really hurts. As we well know. And it will increasingly difficult for Putin to raise new income. As the rate of war attrition increases, it will take fourteen days of oil and gas revenue to fund one day of war. And it is hard to steal form people you have already stolen everything from: they have nothing left to be stolen. Hence Putin last push. Or should that be putsch?
Todays' Letters:
Dear Hoggy,
'Hogsward Nomination: Mihi Şora'
(Hogsward No. 20)
I would like to nominate the Romanian philosopher and commentator on the war, Mihai Şora for today's Hogsward. Mihai is now 105 years old and a famous Romanian man for peace.
His Facebook site, from which I have chosen these images, is full of very incisive writing about the Ukrainain war and he is loud in his condemnation of Putin with over 268,000 followers.
The photographs show a demonstration in London last week where Romanians and others went to the embassy and deposited symbols of Russian looting, evidence of how the sanctions are hurting their families back at home in Russia as well as there desperate shortage on the battlefield itself. He also shows the photograph of a missile hole in a field which it says cost $300,000. All war is a useless waste of the stolen money from the Russian people.
As Mihai says on his site:
'Russians are known for their barbarism. As the packages of stuff looted from the houses of Ukrainians were sent to Russia, Ukrainian community in London brought Russians‘ favourite things to their embassy. Among them — toys, diapers and pads, frying pans, shabby clothes and boots, and used electronics.
Are these things really worth innocent people’s lives?'
I have added a photograph from photographer, Vadim Girda, who I have nominated in a previous post which was a sign that even in these terribly dark days artists have a way of expressing themselves, even right on the battlefield front line: it is a skeleton made out of scarp munitions and parts of missiles and tanks. The skeleton is looking out towards the enemy and is suggesting that even if they killed all the Ukrainian fighters even then their skeletons will continue the fight for ever more.
Thank you Hoggy, please keep your blog going, it is really helpful to express anger and frustration at this awful war.
Bianca Rueben
'Romanians in North Yorkshire'
Dear Bianca,
Thank you again, you are a wonderful stand for your country and for peace. Romania is on the front line and it is important we in the UK stand by you and all Romanians just as much as we are with Ukraine and with Poland and Moldavia and all states threatened by Putin right now.
Please keep writing!
Hoggy.
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