Putin reassures Russians ruble will rise again (That's the ticket.)

President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday Russia’s economy would rebound after the ruble’s collapse against the dollar but warned that it could take two years for the country to emerge from crisis.

Under pressure to show he has a plan to pull Russia out of crisis at his end-of-year news conference, Putin supported the actions of the central bank and government in a crisis he blamed on external factors but said further measures would be required.

Putin had been silent as the currency collapsed this week before recovering some ground.

A prominent opponent, former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, said the crisis showed Putin had mismanaged the economy and that he should organize free elections to quietly end his almost 15-year domination of Russia.

“Russia is going into decline,” Kasyanov told Reuters in an interview late on Wednesday, suggesting Putin should accept that “he needs an exit strategy” to leave power.

There is no exit strategy.

The Brit media claims that he has around a billion dollars stashed away in various banks, of personal wealth. The general feeling was that even when he left office....he’d use the wealth to push the next leadership around and motivate them.

At the current rate though....I dont’ see how Russia can remain stable past spring of next year. All of this....because of Ukraine? The rich and elite have to be asking themselves what the end-game was supposed to be over Ukraine.

I agree. Russia’s neighbors are no threat. They’re routinely mocked by a few on this forum for being too weak to resist Putin. In the next lines, we’re then told Putin has no choice but to lash out at these weak countries, and that he should be admired because he’s soooo strong. It’s totally absurd. The fact that people are killing each other in Ukraine is all about Putin’s unwillingness to allow a sovereign nation to pursue its own policies. He’s supporting a proxy insurection and an undeclared war against people who have been no threat to the USSR or to their Russian-speaking citizens. He’s providing sophisticated weapons to morons who cannot discern a civil aircraft from a fighter jet. Like when the Soviets ruled, anyone who disagrees with Putin is called a fascist by Putin and the Putinistas. The Russians bullied, murdered, stole from, and ruined the economies of all of their neighbors during the communist years of the Iron Curtain. Obviously, Russians still see this as a desirable way for their ruler to lead them. They show no signs of wanting to live peacefully among their neighbors.

The Saudi’s started this decline by over-producing oil. We think it’s about ending fracking, but the most it will do is drive a few marginal producers out of business. I suspect their real intention was to hurt Putin because of his support of Assad. I suspect they’ve already told him: pull out of Syria and we’ll curtail production. All considered, that is pretty cheap to dig him out of the hole he’s in. I suspect he’ll take the deal and begin covert support once the Ruble is stabilized.

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