What I Wish I Knew Before I Got Into Crypto

Russia’s economy in 2025 looks stable — but only on the surface.

The ruble still trades, the Moscow Exchange still functions, and banks report profits. Yet this stability is manufactured.

Behind the numbers lies a system that funds itself, hides its weaknesses, and survives not through productivity, but through war.

The Self-Financing Machine

Since 2022, Russia has operated a closed financial loop.

The Ministry of Finance issues bonds, and state-controlled banks like Sberbank and VTB buy them using liquidity provided by the Central Bank — liquidity that is effectively printed money.

This creates a self-financing economy:

Banks buy government debt. The government spends the proceeds on defense, subsidies, and bureaucracy. The Central Bank issues more rubles to keep the wheel turning.

No external investors. No competition. No real growth.

The system feeds on itself, producing the illusion of economic motion — but not progress.

Artificial Stability and the Illusion of Growth

The government maintains the appearance of growth through war-driven spending.

Factories are busy, not because demand exists, but because the state orders tanks and drones.

Employment looks stable only because military contracts keep millions of workers technically “hired.”

In macroeconomic reports, this appears as GDP growth — but it’s inflationary spending disguised as production.

This pseudo-growth is financed by massive deficits — more than 3 trillion rubles — explained away as “necessary war costs.”

Without the war, such deficits would trigger panic. With the war, they look patriotic.

Public Distrust and Financial Isolation

The Russian population no longer participates in the banking system as savers or investors.

After sanctions cut access to foreign currencies, people withdrew their savings and turned to gold, real estate, or crypto.

Foreign-currency deposits have dropped by over 70%, while ruble deposits remain short-term and unstable.

The result: banks are sustained not by people, but by the state.

And the state is sustained by the very same banks.

It’s a financial ouroboros — the system eating its own tail.

Why the War Cannot Stop

From an economic perspective, Russia can no longer afford peace.

Ending the war would immediately expose the fragile structure of its finances:

Defense factories would shut down, creating mass unemployment. Banks would lose their main source of income — military contracts and government bonds. The deficit would remain, but the justification for it would disappear. The illusion of “stability” would collapse overnight.

In short: the war is not just political — it’s the last pillar holding the economy upright.

The Trump Factor and the Logic of Refusal

When Western politicians hinted at a potential “deal” — particularly under Trump’s administration — Putin had every rational reason to reject it.

Accepting peace would have meant:

allowing transparency and financial auditing; reopening to global markets (and revealing the real fiscal data); admitting that the so-called “resilience” was a controlled illusion.

For the Kremlin, that’s far riskier than continuing the conflict.

Because the moment the guns fall silent, the books must be opened.

And those books are empty.

The Russian leadership understands that the war narrative is not just about territory — it’s an economic shield.

As long as the country is “fighting,” every problem has a ready-made excuse: inflation, shortages, or falling living standards.

Peace, on the other hand, would remove that shield — and expose the rot beneath.

The Countdown to Structural Failure

This model can survive for only so long.

Analysts estimate that Russia has 12 to 18 months before the self-financing loop reaches its natural limit.

When banks can no longer absorb new government debt, or inflation finally erodes public confidence in the ruble, the cycle breaks.

There won’t be a loud crash.

There will be a slow suffocation — credit drying up, rubles losing real value, industries collapsing in silence.

The shell of stability will remain, but the economy inside will be hollow.

Conclusion

Russia’s economic “strength” is an illusion built on war spending, propaganda, and closed financial circuits.

It looks solid because no one is allowed to measure it from the outside.

But every illusion has a limit — and this one is approaching fast.

In the end, the Russian economy won’t collapse with a bang.

It will quietly sink under the weight of its own contradictions —

a state that replaced growth with conflict, and truth with control.

✍️ CryptoMama | Global Market Psychology & Economic Analysis

Explaining how nations survive when money runs out.