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  1. The competition for that is going to be fierce. No doubt we will try, but a lot of schools are going to pursue this one If we get AC, Vic has to sell to the donors that this is the roster that wins us a title. Chavez Booker Oldacre Lee/Preston Phelia back from injury Just go get a big and we are preseason #1, especially if Rori comes back
  2. SEC time yall. Hope anyone going to Starkville has a great time. win this series will be a huge improvement since we didn’t beat a SEC last season Hook ‘em!
  3. It could be worse. I was talking to a friend that went to the game in CS last November. He said he tried to get “Poo-oo-oor Aggies!” Going in the 4th quarter, and it just didn’t take. It is possible that, with a 13 year break in The series, younger Texas fans don’t know that we do that, when the win is almost certain? We need to do that next year, and remind them why they hate playing us so bad.
  4. torre

    2025 NCAA Baseball

    Few notes from D1 Baseball Chat. Not a member, but the chat is 1PM (verify the time) and is public until they paywall. If interested in following, google "D1 Baseball Chat" on Mondays. The questions are answered by Kendall, Aaron Fitt and sometimes another writer. Kendall, can you speak to the situation at Rice? Unfortunately, my Owls have fallen from the competitive levels of college baseball. Its become an embarrassment. Has something changed within the framework of the program to lead to the current stage? I cant figure out how we went from Omaha contender to being swept at home by Yale in front of no fans in a 10-year window. Thanks Baldy -- Great question. The issue with Rice right now is two fold: 1) There's a lot of apathy around the program right now, and that typically doesn't breed a ton of success. 2) There just isn't a lot of high-end talent in the program. Does Texas have the pitching/bullpen to make a deep run in their first year in the SEC? -- I tend to think the Texas bullpen gets exposed at some point -- it has had some rough moments at times already this season. But if there's one thing I know, it's that a Max Weiner pitching staff typically gets better and better as the season progresses. The fact that Spencer/Harrison/Volantis are all very solid takes immense pressure off the bullpen. We'll see if things change this weekend at Dudy Noble. That is going to be infinitely different than what the Longhorns are used to in the Big 12. Should be an exciting weekend at The Dude. The preseason top two are now at #19 and #23. Who has been more disappointing to you this season and why? A push -- both have been major disappointments through the first month, obviously. Of course, both of them have been hampered by injury to a critical preseason All-American (Grahovac for A&M, Blanco for UVa, although he's building his way back up, but still hasn't been a weekend starter, let alone the Friday night ace we expected him to be). But I thought both of these offenses would be truly elite, and I still expect them to get to that level eventually. Just surprised how long the early-season struggle has lingered. It's baseball, it's a long season, and I am not giving up on either of these teams -- far from it. I think both will still be in Omaha. But they need to go ahead and get hot already... Based on the way this season is unfolding and unless something changes overnight in Big 12 play, it looks like Texas Tech is spiraling towards its worst season in decades and possibly an all-time low for the program. With the intel you have about Tim Tadlock, his staff, and how the university/donors view baseball, what sort of changes don't just need to happen but are likely to be made for the program? Is it remotely possible Tadlock ends up on a serious hot seat? Travis -- I think Texas Tech's issues are two-fold. 1) I don't think the Red Raiders have done a very good job with roster construction. This is not a big-time power hitting type of lineup, which is the total opposite of what you'd want with RGP as your home ballpark. It makes little sense. On top of that, Tech ranks 209th nationally in staff ERA right now with a 7.17 staff ERA. That's awful. I get that Tech has played a somewhat tough schedule with several road games, but that is very rough. I think anyone with a clue kind of knows what the issues around LBK are right now. I'm not ready to throw in the towel on a Tim Tadlock-coached team just yet ... but I'm close. Thoughts on Mississippi State? Were they close to rejoining the rankings this week? Good bounceback week for the Bulldogs -- we didn't really have any spots to bring them back in, and we had to force Stanford in by dropping a team that won its weekend, because the Cardinal just had to get into the rankings after winning that road series against a top five team. If we had more spots open, I think MSU would have been strongly in that conversation. Will their be a Regional Host on the West Coast this year? I think so Yes the West Coast will have a Top 16 team. UCLA, Oregon State, Stanford are all off to great starts, and also are in great shape from an RPI standpoint. Ironically, one of the higher ranked teams, UCSB, is in a precarious spot RPI-wise right now with an RPI of 91. That won't be incredibly easy to make up in the Big West. We'll see. But yes, I feel pretty good -- as of right now -- about the West getting a host site. Does your RPI differ from that of the NCAA's? I'm asking because I noticed Tulane droped from 62 to 146. They won a series but still dropped almost 100 spots. I get NDSU only had one win. But dropping THAT many spots? It's still too early to even bother looking at RPI -- that's an example of how volatile it still is at this point in the season. I wouldn't even give it a glance until week six or so, personally. what is your opinion on B12 this season. not strong non conference schedules but plenty of good teams...how many bids this year and who are your top 5 teams so far Looks like a deep league! Obviously seeing Kansas and WVU get off to 14-1 starts -- albeit against lesser competition — is very encouraging, and Baylor has been one of the big surprises so far in college baseball. We already thought UCF, ASU, TCU and Arizona were regional-caliber teams heading into the season, and certainly that opinion has been reinforced. Kansas State is another big surprise, a team I've talked about plenty -- I'm in on them as a postseason team, and Cincinnati rebounded nicely this week, they should be right in the mix. Obviously Oklahoma State remains one of the favorites, despite a modest 9-6 record against a strong schedule. Texas Tech has been a big disappointment, but by in large you have to be very encouraged by this start for the Big 12. Feels like it could wind up being an eight or nine-bid league. DBU's starting rotation looks strong, but I am concerned about their relief pitching. Do you think DBU will be strong enough this year to host? Brett -- Looking around at Conference USA and some of the RPIs in the league, DBU is not going to enter league play from a position of strength. Right now, the RPI is in the 27-30 range with a lot of triple digit opponents left on the schedule. -- i.e., that's little margin for error.
  5. Billy!! Now that Oklahoma and Texas are in the SEC, I want the SEC to be the best conference in every sport. Things like the playoff berths, those final spots in the field and the benefit of seeding, I want the SEC to be thought of as the best conference. I no longer care how any of them fare in the postseason for that carryover effect. The SEC is going to be fine in baseball forever. I think it's going to be the SEC and the Big Ten for perpetuity in football. In basketball, as long as they have the caliber of coaching they have now, and NIL is where it's at, and with conference realignment, I don't think they'll typically get as many in the NCAA Tournament as they did this year. For me, as an Aggie, it was way less about SEC pride. I want the SEC to dominate the bowl games. I want them to dominate the non-conference matchups in the regular season. I want them to be lightyears ahead of the Big 12 in baseball so that when it comes down to whether or not Texas A&M or Texas were going to host a super regional, playing in that league would give them that little bit of extra in terms of perception. Being in the SEC was a massive recruiting advantage over Texas and Oklahoma. Did Texas A&M capitalize on that advantage? No. Clearly, they did not. It is an awful failure that in that amount of time when Texas was going through the end of Mack Brown, Charlie Strong and Tom Herman, and the first couple of years of Steve Sarkisian, which were not good. Texas went 5-7 with a six-game losing streak, and then I think they went 7-6 in Sarkisian’s first two years. A couple of years of Sarkisian, a whole tenure of Herman, a whole tenure of Strong and the last couple of years of Mack, and the Aggies couldn't capitalize. A&M was in the SEC in 2012. They couldn't build on it in 2013. Once or twice, they had a chance to be special. Texas is your arch-rival in recruiting. Always has been. Always will be. They were down, and you were almost over the mountain top after that first year in the conference. The beatdown you put on Bob Stoops and Oklahoma. We could talk all day about how close they were and why they didn't get there. With Kyler Murray and all these different things right up until what you thought Conner Weigman could be. You hired Jimbo Fisher and went all in. It felt like he almost got it there. A&M finished No. 4 in the country and followed that up with the No. 1 class of all time. Fisher was almost there. Kevin Sumlin was almost there. They couldn't follow up the great year with another great one. They were both 8-4, but Fisher's felt closer because you had that win over Alabama, and then you beat Auburn. The point is you couldn't capitalize, and now here we are. You had your foot on the neck of your biggest rival. You had a massive advantage in terms of recruiting. It played out that way, but you couldn't capitalize on it, and that's killer. It was a missed opportunity. You can't do anything about that now. You can just go forward with it. When you look at Georgia, Texas and Ole Miss and what they lost, it's fair to ask how do they replace that and still go forward? Texas with Arch Manning, everyone in Austin is going to tell me, "He promised to stay four years." I don't know about that. I know he'll make enough money, but if he has the year you think he's going to have, he's going to be the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft. Money is not the deal for him or that family, is what I've been told. If they have him for maybe one year, they want Longhorn football to take a step forward. That step forward means winning the SEC and playing for a national title. That's it. Anything else is a big step back. If you go 9-3, it's a big step back. If you go 10-2, don't play in Atlanta and lose the first round of the playoffs, that's a big step back. A&M's step forward has to be 9-3. Play truly meaningful games in November. We got away from realizing it was year one because of how good they started. They lost in the final two minutes to a team that played for the national title. You played the national title game loser to the last two minutes. Nobody wants an award for that, but that was your only loss in the first eight games. SEC Mike texted me, and he had Bobby Burton on. He asked him, "How much money did Texas spend on its football roster last season?" Bobby was quoted by SEC Mike as saying, "A lot. Definitely north of $25 million." We've heard the same thing about Ohio State. I'll be safe and say A&M was operating at probably $10 million-ish below those teams. You know we can throw Oregon in there. I'm sure a lot of teams would have loved to be operating where A&M was last year. Most of college football would love to be there. This year, a lot more will be there because of this athletic department having the house settlement, which will force the athletic departments to pay. If you can do the collective and that thing, a lot of these schools are going to jump up even further. Regardless of that gap, A&M is between that five and 10 range in terms of the amount on the roster. North of $25 million has to be eye-opening. There is nothing wrong with it. When I am ranking coaches, and I don't have Steve Sarkisian, he's just on the fringe of the top five. Everyone tells me Ryan Day is not a good coach. He's got the best roster money can buy. So does Texas. So does Oregon. Texas A&M is trying to, and they have one of the best. You still have to hit on your evaluations, and you still have to develop. Sarkisian can go 5-7, and go sign guys like Quinn Ewers, CJ Baxter, Kelvin Banks Jr. and all of these NFL guys because you had the level of unlimited checkbook that no one else had. That's legal. You're not doing anything wrong, but I don't think he does any of this without having the best roster money can buy. If you don't think Elko is actively trying to get the best roster money can buy, it's not an insult. It's a reality. I think Elko and the group right now have done a tremendous job of taking NIL from here to here. Ohio State and Texas have the best roster money can buy, but they're also homegrown teams for the most part. That's what Elko wants to do here in College Station. There's no better way to get guys in your program at a high level than to figure out who can do what and make sure you keep the guys who are worth keeping. That's what they did this year. That's the most important thing in the portal in Elko's mind, and I think that's the most important thing when you look at the teams who made deep runs in the playoffs this year. I like Elko's approach. I like where A&M's NIL is going, but that $25 million number is what it is. It's no secret. That's why Burton had no problem saying it. In the SEC, I think you have to have both. You have to be able to go out and pay for and get the best players and pay and keep your really good players because everyone is trying to poach them. You have to be able to develop. That's actually the part I feel best about with Elko. I think he's laser-focused on developing, keeping the guys so they can develop and keeping the guys from leaving, who are proven
  6. apparently i give CDC more credit than many of y’all do. again, we’re talking about case where it’s blatantly clear that the only reason we are winning games is because of our 19 year old lottery pick who is going full chris jackson on the competition. absolutely nobody thinks that this is a good or well coached team, even as we continue to win games. if you think CDC can’t still choose to move on from RT in that situation then that tells me that you don’t think very highly of CDC or his ability to do his job.
  7. There is still hope for some there. In | RegisterTexas A&M Baseball & Softball Sponsored by Post Reply 15 of 15 *****Aggies vs. New Mexico State - Sunday***** 28,352 Views | 490 Replies | Last: 11 min ago by HoustonAg2106 HoustonAg2106 In reply to Killzone3abc • 6:49p AG W said: this is a good comparison the Gators went 13-17 in league play last year...lost 8 non-conference games...regional 3-seed that's about how the Ags profile at this point in the season Killzone3abc said: We aren't going to get the grace they were given with a 13-17 record even if we have similar big wins in that 13. 13-17 gets a lot of SEC teams in, Florida also had a lot of bad losses in the non conference last year like we do now, if we go 13-17 I think we'll sneak in. 12-18 though and we're left out.
  8. I don’t really see why that would be the case. Spencer is a real Friday night guy, Harrison is more than serviceable and will get some conference wins on Saturdays. Sundays are generally a crap shoot for everyone but Volantis certainly has stuff. We know that our offense is going to live and die with the home run and we are going to hit plenty of them. Why everyone wants to pretend that this lineup didn’t face good pitching last year is beyond me. Im not saying we will be the best team in the conference but I see no reason we won’t win at least 16 conference games and with as serious as Schloss takes Tuesdays we should take most of those.
  9. I’m going to get shit for this, but as a good as Rori is on defense and how much we love her overall, her lack of a three-point threat limits the upside of this team. As another said, we’re UH (except on the women’s side) until this roster becomes more well rounded offensively. Now, that still makes for a really good team, but if we want to win a title, it’ll have to change.
  10. This team is so good yet the one flaw we have is the reason I don’t think they can win it all. Can’t remember a women’s champion getting destroyed like this then going on a run. SC is still the team to beat in the tourney so would love to get a rematch in the championship game.
  11. Yeah, but that shit is always. Why now? Goes back to one of my earlier posts. Rump Serbia (Republika Srbska) always was pulling this shit. What is interesting is going after the Federation Police, that they were part of. This is an EU Thorn. We focus on Hungary being Russias baby. But Serbs can go full Orthodox and say fuck it. Kosovo Polje MoFo's. And with the existing subcultures it is not hard to kill any opposition. Open a bottle of win and watch the BBC's Death of Yugoslavia. Just the first one. Here is the link. And this fucks with Turkey. Handle it wrong, parts of Bulgaria get pissed. Do it real wrong and now the Macedonians and Greeks are pissed. Faultlines are always the most dangerous.
  12. we took possession of the goods and already have it in secure storage designed for storing high value property. after some research including reading Goldman Sachs forecasts and a few others - and wow what a conspiratorial rats nest the gold corner of the internet can be - we decided to hold indefinitely (at least this year). we are expecting a nice run up on both this year. modestly 8-10% but 25% isn't out of the question. the question will be when to sell. Historically, gold and silver are shit compared to the S&P and DJIA, like hammered dog shit. I get the appeal, and shit we aren't talking ETFs we're talking the real stuff, so clearly her folks thought the tangible stuff was what mattered. I fundamentally disagree unless we are dealing with zombies then I think the bugs are winning for sure. anyway, finding the off ramp is going to be interesting.
  13. Haha. This is not rambling. I don't feel like he has the judiciary firmly in his grasp. Most of the Supreme Court are not toadies, even if a couple seem like they've been willingly purchased. The overall federal judiciary is absolutely not toadies. There are plenty he has appointed that understand loyalty was part of the appointment, but plenty of others who either don't see it that way, or were appointed by someone else. It will take some time to purge federal law enforcement agencies. These are lifetime bureaucrats. This isn't their first rodeo. The military isn't going to suddenly do his bidding to enforce some kind of coup just because he's seeking like minded people to staff the highest positions. It's going to take a while and a lot of dismissals. Then there's the fact Trump is 78 years old. He's going to die relatively soon. Before that, there's a good chance he simply loses his faculties. It happens. Trump has done a lot of damage and we've collectively allowed it. I include myself in that category because while I've never voted for him and never indicated my support for him as the president, it's not like I've led some kind of popular movement to create a viable alternative. At most I've given token amounts to organizations who recognize what a danger he is. Still, all is not lost. It just feels like it could be. And that's strange enough. It's crazy to me that there's still a lot of people in my personal circle who get excited about Trump even right now. It's like a spectator sport, their side is winning, and who cares about democracy getting trammeled if it means their side is winning. It's frightening to me. I always felt like democracy is way more fragile than we realize. I've always thought that as horrible as what happened in Nazi Germany, the real problem is that authoritarian regimes can come about anywhere, and then once they do it's simply easier to be compliant than it is to fight it. But it's one thing to have that as an intellectual thought for basically all of my life. It's completely different seeing it come to fruition in front of my very eyes. By people I know and love. I just remember when people were saying this is the most important election of our lifetime prior to November, and I kept saying, if you think this election is important, wait until you see the next one.
  14. If we beat ousucks and Georgia and Arkansas lose I don’t think it matters and we end up the 13 seed and play Georgia or Arkansas first round. Then possibly mizzou or Aggy. So it’s possible we win a few more games. Also we lose the next two and go to the nit. Either way rt sucks dick and is having to ride the tre johnson going off to win strategy. That’s not a program that has culture or an identity. It’s “recruit and play street ball”.
  15. That decision isn't being based on getting in the tournament or not. We fired Pierce after 3 of 4 years of a super regional or better. Herman was fired after going 7-3 and winning a bowl game. Yes, if we make the tournament and then miraculously go to the Sweet 16, maybe he isn't fired, but this stuff always works itself out in the end.
  16. Texas IS still alive for the tourney. All they need to do is win the conference tournament (a la NC State, "Survive and Advance") Not going to hold my breath, and for the first time in many years, not sure I would want that, in that we need a new coach, and that would cloud the picture for the administration. If up to me, I am ready to call it a year and skip the NIT and find a winner for next year.
  17. When the players pick the coach, you have to wonder how the off-season training went and then they start the season on a 4 game skid. Says something imo. Go look at Schloss' last PC "if the tournament has a trophy we want to win it. " Gomer is missing him bad. They now have a player run team and it shows.
  18. IMO it will go one of two ways in 2028. If Trump keeps the right in line for the next four years, it will be incredibly difficult for a D candidate to win. The right will shit all over and reject any "celebrity" or middle aged white guy, no matter how well liked before entering the political arena. We need a candidate with real substance/skills and ability to cut through the bullshit. It will take a generational talent. if Trump burns everything to the ground and destroys the economy/country, Jimmy Carter's corpse would win in 2028.
  19. I do like that freshman big they have - Trigg. She had 19 and 9 in the 2OT win over ND. They are just a 4 headed monster at guard - Rivers, Brooks, Hayes, James. One or two are bound to go off. If we ended up against them, you'd almost have to play mostly a 4 guard lineup to handle them. I'd almost say fuck it and start Harmon, Preston, Holle and Booker just to handle them. But you are right, they probably would struggle to handle Jones and Oldacre inside. Liatu King had 16 and 14 in that game and she's only a 6'0 forward. ND doesn't really have a traditional center.
  20. And what interest are those? Why do you give a shit what the rest of Europe thinks about us? Are they going to attack us or write a strongly worded letter about it? It’s great that they are picking up their end of the slack trying to stabilize their own region. I’m totally fine with people being embarrassed to be an American because we aren’t being empathetic enough to give some crybaby more money because he wants to hide behind big brother instead of actually broker peace. We have given Ukraine much more than they deserve and are owed by us. Time to put the big boy pants on and accept concessions…unless they can find someone else to meet their terms. If so…great! Win/win for everyone.
  21. The only ranked team Texas has beaten is fellow SEC member Ole Miss, not sure if they were ranked when Texas played them. Rebs have reeled off nine straight wins since that run rule game to be ranked now. Texas isn't going to play another ranked team till #2 LSU comes to Austin in the second week of SEC play. Texas opens conference against one of the few SEC teams not ranked in Mississippi State. Twelve of the sixteen SEC teams are ranked. Nonconference play is just getting into a good position to start SEC play, without any of the big series against top teams like in the past. That's ok now with the gauntlet to come SEC conference games really do "mean more" in baseball, not just a slogan. This will be when we find out how good this Texas team is. Really need to get a Sunday starter and hopefully some bullpen arms you can depend on before then.
  22. Not at all. The schedule is harder than it was this year. We are replacing both coordinators, and QB. I don’t have any idea how good Mateer is going to be, no one really does. Trust me I hope we run the table and beat Texas by 175 points. But I’m a realist and just do not see it. I would love to see you and @closetojumping run down our schedule and point out wins and loses.
  23. Trump is being played by Putin – Russia will never accept a peace deal Summarize The invasion of Ukraine wrecked Moscow’s finances – but it’s now the Kremlin’s only source of growth Melissa Lawford02 March 2025 6:00am GMT “Vranyo” is a Russian word for a specific type of lying. “I once translated it for one of our ministers as ‘epic, bare-faced whopper that we both know cannot possibly be true, but I’m going to tell you anyway’,” says Sir Laurie Bristow, who was the UK’s ambassador to Russia from January 2016 until January 2020. It is a concept that sits at the heart of Vladimir Putin’s statecraft. And it is about power. “I had it done to me repeatedly in meetings. It’s not necessarily to persuade you that their version is true. It’s to cast doubt on the truth, by putting around so much litter that you kind of lose the will to live, you just become demoralised,” says Sir Laurie. In 2014, for example, after the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was hit by a Russian-made Buk missile over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board, the Kremlin fed myths to the press. These included first the claim that the plane was shot down by Ukraine, and then a story that the CIA had filled a plane with bodies and crashed it to discredit the state. It is this type of vranyo that has fuelled Russia’s isolation on the world stage. Long before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine made Putin an international pariah, Moscow was kept at arm’s length by the West. Donald Trump seems blissfully unaware of Russia’s track record – or at least doesn’t care. He has launched a mission to reset ties with Moscowand promised “to get that war over” in Ukraine. In doing so, he has shocked the international community by upending Western foreign policy, reopening ties with the Russian president and ruling out offering US security guarantees or Nato membership for Ukraine. After he met with Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, on Thursday, Trump told reporters that Putin would “keep his word” if a peace deal is secured. But even a peace deal in Putin’s favour would not get around the fact that Russia has become economically and ideologically addicted to war. Russia’s economy is creaking under the weight of war, wracked by labour shortages, sanctions, high inflation and record interest rates. But equally, the conflict is its only remaining engine of growth. After three years of war, nationalist anti-Western propaganda has also become the basis of Putin’s power. “Putin does not want peace and he’s not going to settle,” says Simon Johnson, MIT professor and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). “He’s enjoying the war. It’s awful. But he doesn’t want to end the war.” Trump believes forging economic links with Ukraine will be enough to deter future conflict. But a peace deal will not quell the imperialist fire in Putin’s belly. “Trump is greatly deceived by Mr Putin,” says Johnson. “Trump wants a quick victory. He wants a triumph and a show and Putin is going to play him along. He’s being played.” War machine Russia is hooked on military spending. In 2019, Russia spent 5 trillion roubles (£45bn) on defence and security combined, or 28pc of its total government spending. This year, in nominal terms, the bill will be 17 trillion roubles – 41pc of all government spending. The war economy now makes up between 8pc and 10pc of Russia’s GDP. “For a country that is waging a war not on its own soil, that is a lot,” says Alexander Kolyandr, of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). The war industry has become the main driver of the Russian economy. On the surface at least, all this spending is fuelling a strong economy. Russia’s real GDP grew by 3.6pc in 2024, according to the IMF – more than triple the growth seen in Britain last year. Real wages in Russia rose by 9.4pc in 2024, according to Rosstat, the Kremlin’s statistics agency. But only one business is booming: war. “The manufacturing industry, which includes the defence industry, was the only sector that showed growth in 2024,” says Alexandra Prokopenko, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center who worked at Russia’s Central Bank until 2022. Russia has doubled production of armoured vehicles, while some ammunition manufacturers have quintupled their output. Manufacturing production jumped by 7.6pc in the first nine months of last year. But outside sectors directly linked to the military, growth is anaemic at best, says Prokopenko. “Consumer spending is driven by larger salaries to servicemen or even payouts to casualties,” says Agnia Grigas, of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. The war effort is sucking investment and manpower away from the non-military sector, leaving the private sector to shrivel. “Over time, Russia’s ability to maintain and develop a dynamic non-military economy is being cannibalised,” says Sir Laurie. “If they ever come to unwinding the war economy, there won’t be the civilian economy left to take up the slack.” Rather than prepare for peace, the Kremlin is doubling down on its war machine. In its autumn budget, the government raised its projections for military spending and cut nominal spending on social policy. “Military spending has started to become some kind of black hole,” says Andrei Yakovlev, associate at Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. Meanwhile, prices are soaring, bringing misery for ordinary Russians. Inflation averaged 12.1pc in the last three months of 2024. Interest rates have soared to a post-Soviet high of 21pc as Russia’s central bank scrambled to combat runaway price rises. Yet the main problem is not something that can easily be solved by monetary policy: a lack of manpower. By one estimate, 172,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the war so far and a further 611,000 have been wounded. In September, Putin said he wanted to increase the size of the Russian army by 180,000 to 1.5m active servicemen. At least 650,000 emigres who fled Russia when the war began are still abroad, according to The Bell, a Russian independent economic news outlet. There are not enough workers for the rest of the economy. Russia’s unemployment rate has plunged to an all-time record low of 2.3pc. Even Kremlin-linked analysts calculate that Russia needs an additional 1.6m workers. Removing the state-engine of war spending would plunge Russia into an economic stagnation on the scale not seen since the Soviet Union in the 1980s, says Kolyandr. “They will continue to spend on military production not only to restock their arsenal but also to keep the economy from sliding into recession.” Russia does not have any other levers to support the economy. Its services sector is not globally competitive and its technology sector is backward. “There is no way that they can export,” says Kolyandr. The key strength of Russia’s economy has always been its oil and gas exports, but the world has turned away from its fossil fuel industry in the years since the war in Ukraine began. Europe has diversified, the US has emerged as a leading exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG), and even Russia’s new energy buyers, India and China, would be hesitant to become dependent on the state for their supplies. “The Russian leadership has boasted that its economy has been growing despite sanctions. That has been because of military production. So that would have to continue, because no alternatives have been figured out,” says Grigas. A Russian economy without war will simply be a Russian economy preparing for war, says Johnson. “Whether you call it war or whether you call it peace, it doesn’t matter. It’s still a militarised economy, funded by oil,” he says. “Even if there is ‘peace’, Russia will scale up their armaments. This is the political economy equilibrium keeping Putin in power.” ‘Straight out of Machiavelli’ Until 2005, Sir Bill Browder was the largest foreign investor in Russia. Then he was banned from entering the country for exposing corruption in Russian state-owned companies. In 2008, his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky uncovered a huge fraud committed by Russian government officials that involved the theft of $230m (£180m) in state taxes. Magnitsky was arrested, imprisoned without trial, tortured and eventually died in prison in 2009. Corruption goes to the heart of the Russian state, Sir Bill says. It has rotted out the country’s core and is now pushing Putin to launch attacks abroad to shore up his regime. “Putin needs war very specifically as a way to stay in power. If you look at the history of his presidency, every time his popularity has started to diminish, he started a war,” says Sir Bill. Sir Bill Browder believes Putin starts wars to stay in powerCredit: Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images Take, for example, Russia’s wars with Chechnya in the run up to Putin’s first election as president in 2000, Russia’s five-day war with Georgia in 2008 (which an EU-backed report said was started by Georgia following Russian provocation), and Russia’s annexation of Crimea and eastern Ukraine in 2014. In 2022, when Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, his popularity had been hammered by the Covid pandemic. “This is straight out of Machiavelli,” Sir Bill says. “If you’re worried about people being angry with you, you create a foreign enemy and you start a war.” Russians are far more patriotic than Britons and opposition to the West unites nationalist sentiment, says Sir Tony Brenton, who was the UK’s ambassador to Russia from 2004 to 2008. “In the current situation, everybody knows that Russia is up against the West, or believes that it is, and that is the sort of situation where Russians instinctively gather around their leader because they feel that the external threat is a direct threat to them,” he says. The war may be hammering Russia’s economy, but it has also given Putin more licence to crack down on civic society, tightening personal liberties and freedom of expression. Putin banned Facebook and Instagram in 2022 after labelling their parent company Meta “extremist”. In the same year, the Russian state revoked the media licence of one of the country’s few independent news outlets, Novaya Gazeta, forcing its closure. Various foreign reporters have been expelled. “Wartime society and wartime politics is beneficial in keeping the current regime in power,” says Grigas. War is also making some people very rich. The nephew of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov was appointed head of the seized Russian subsidiary of French yoghurt maker Danone in 2023, for example, before being sold at a heavy discount to local businessmen in the region. The Kovalchuk brothers, oligarchs with close ties to Putin, have also gained new influence, says Yakovlev. Umar Kremlev, who is now the owner of the Rolf company, the car dealer nationalised by the Russian government in 2023, similarly has new status. “In my view war can be in their interests,” says Yakovlev. “Putin needs one of two things in order to maintain the stability of the regime,” says Sir Laurie. “One is pretty much perpetual conflict with the West. The other is victory over the West.” ‘Rotten and corrupt’ Vranyo surfaces in many different ways in Russia. For a period of months while Sir Tony was ambassador, he was trailed by members of an aggressive pro-Kremlin youth group called Nashi. “They were in groups of three or four. But it was all over the country. If I flew to give a speech somewhere, they knew where I was going, they’d get themselves there, into the meeting, and then they would shout abuse,” says Sir Tony. “They were given free way by the traffic police. It was very clear they had authority from the Russian government to do what they were doing.” State structures in Russia are not known for being honest and reliable. “Nobody in Russia, certainly when I was there and I don’t think it has changed since, takes a driving test,” says Sir Tony. “What they do is they bribe the examiner. Because the system itself is so rotten and corrupt that it’s much easier to fork out small sums of money than to go through procedures that are not very dependable.” The US president has suggested that a key motive for Russia to make peace in Europe would be the prospect of combined US-Russian business interests. Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, told Moscow delegates in Riyadh last month that the US and Russia could pursue “potentially historic economic partnerships” and “incredible opportunities” if Putin ends the war. US and Russian officials are reportedly in talks about joint exploration of natural resources in the Arctic. However, Trump’s discussion of business ties with Russia are a fantasy, says Sir Bill. “Nobody in their right mind is going to invest in Russia right now, that’s insane. It is not going to happen in a million years. “I can tell you, as previously the largest foreign investor in the country, nobody is going to put a penny into it. There’s no rule of law. You’ll lose your money and you’ll get killed. That is what happens in Russia. It’s a toxic business environment. It’s uninvestable.” Johnson at MIT is similarly blunt: “Any foreign investor in Russia is insane and should immediately be fired by their shareholders.” Trump’s surrender Trumpworld is blasé about all this. So far, it has granted a series of concessions to Russia in an attempt to draw Putin closer to peace. First came a prisoner exchange, during which US special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff said he “spent a lot of time with President Putin, talking, developing a friendship, a relationship with him”. Then came a 90-minute call between Trump and Putin, a meeting between US and Russian officials in Riyadh and then more talks last week in Istanbul. Last month at the United Nations General Assembly, the US voted alongside Russia, Belarus and North Korea against a European resolution condemning Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine as an unprovoked attack – a vote which even China, Russia’s most important ally, abstained from. John Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security adviser during his first administration, has described the US president as Putin’s puppet. “This is essentially surrendering to the Russian position,” says Bolton. Trump thinks foreign policy is based on personal relations, but Putin is not moved by personal ties. “He’s as cold-blooded as it comes in pursuing Russia’s national interests,” Bolton says. “Trump doesn’t get it. He thinks he and Putin are friends. “This former KGB agent has been manipulating him for the past couple of weeks to get what he wants and Trump doesn’t even realise.” The president may be able to secure a ceasefire but any kind of peace will only be temporary. Putin will only use the time to rearm. “If you get a ceasefire across existing frontlines, I think that will freeze into a new border,” says Bolton. Whatever happens next will have big geopolitical implications. Aside from Putin’s own ambitions, China is watching closely for an indication of how much the West will care if it were to make a move on Taiwan. “I think their calculus is if the US and Nato won’t stand up against aggression on the continent of Europe, the US is very unlikely to do anything significant in a faraway place like Taiwan,” says Bolton. “It is very dangerous.” Timothy Ash, of Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia programme, says Trump may simply not care. “For him, Ukraine is a European problem. I think Trump will agree anything to get a quick ceasefire and he won’t really care about whether it’s sustainable, that is for the Europeans to sort out.” What should European leaders do? Starmer and Macron should step up cash support for Ukraine so that it can buy US weapons, says Johnson. Sir Bill argues the best way to do this would be to seize $300bn in frozen Russian assets – an idea that has been advocated by UK David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, but which critics argue could undermine the legal system. Bolton has an even cheaper, but perhaps more controversial suggestion. The best thing that European leaders can do is convince Trump that it is in his personal interests to support Ukraine, he says. “It’s not worth talking about what’s going to happen in Ukraine. It won’t even move him really talking about what US national interests are. Everything with Trump is personal and he wants the Nobel Peace Prize,” says Bolton. “Starmer ought to offer to nominate him.” If Trump were to win the prize, there would almost certainly be a grim irony. As Russia’s war machine chunters on, few are convinced that any peace deal would last.
  24. Coaching a kinder SBMSA team and Im an assistant on my oldest kids LL team. LL season already started, we are on a competitive squad and having fun. SBMSA team is going to be lucky to win a game. This grade didnt win a single sbmsa flag fball game between two teams. My son is gonna get a ton of reps though.
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