The Russian economy is not doing well. Kamaz, at one time the largest producer of heavy trucks in Russia, is laying off workers, cutting wages and shortening workweeks to try to stave off bankruptcy. The Russian government and the rest of Russian industry simply aren’t ordering any heavy trucks anymore – not exactly what one would expect in a wartime economy. That’s because both are being bombed to flinders by Ukraine and because the near-strangulation of the “shadow fleet” Russia had been using to export oil and gas has resulted in epic red ink on the books of the Russian oil and gas industry.

Putin, meanwhile, is flying drones over Lithuania and moving more troops to positions along the Finnish border and into Belarus. The Belarussian build-up is in an area that could be used as the jumping-off point for an effort to try taking Lithuanian and Polish territory in order to establish an access corridor between Belarus and Kaliningrad.

Any actual move against Lithuania, Poland or Finland – all NATO members – would trigger the instant end of Russia as a nation so I don’t actually expect much to come of this posturing. In fact it benefits Ukraine. Every Russian soldier assigned to pointless attempted intimidation efforts elsewhere is one less Ukraine has to deal with on its own soil.

I assume Ukraine knows where it is…