2.18 Everything Must Go
The Eastern Border
Kristaps Andrejsons
4.7 • 877 Ratings
🗓️ 20 March 2026
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Russian state is no longer an empire; it is a bankrupt cartel running a terminal liquidation sale. In this episode, we wade into the absolute darkest corners of the Z-sphere to document the collapse. We break down the math behind Putin's $65 billion loss in gold reserves, the 3.5 trillion ruble budget hole, and the intentional destruction of the Russian middle class.
But the clearance sale doesn't stop at the economy. We examine the military’s "disciplinary meat grinder," the slaughter of independent farmers' cattle, and finally, the pitch-black basement of the regime: The return of Soviet punitive psychiatry. Kremlin loyalist Ilya Remeslo defected, and instead of a trial, the state dragged him to Ward 16 of the Skvortsov-Stepanov hospital for a chemical lobotomy via haloperidol—while his former Z-patriot colleagues cheered.
The empire is completely hollow. Happiness is Mandatory.
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I'll add the sources later. Maybe. I'm a bit overworked at the moment.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Love this podcast? |
| 0:02.0 | Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. |
| 0:05.2 | It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. |
| 0:09.1 | Just click the link in the show description to support now. |
| 0:13.1 | Greetings, comrades, and oh boy, welcome to the Eastern Border. |
| 0:17.6 | I feel like I'm going and say it a bit, and yes, your ears are not deceiving you. |
| 0:21.3 | This is the third episode in three days. |
| 0:23.6 | And I was supposed to have a bit of a break right now with barbecue and everything. |
| 0:27.1 | My friends have arrived here in Pilda and I'm technically supposed to be relaxing. |
| 0:30.8 | Well, tough luck on me, on you, and on a whole damn planet that's currently being burned to cinder. |
| 0:36.8 | The fact that I'm now living in the deep rural countryside where I can grow my own tomatoes, |
| 0:42.0 | and things like this legitimately gives me some peace of mind. |
| 0:45.4 | Unlike literally everything else that's going on right across the border, |
| 0:49.1 | especially the stuff that I have been talking about in the past few episodes, |
| 0:52.4 | which I haven't seen really covered elsewhere, but which are extremely important to be exposed right now. |
| 0:58.3 | I told you this March will be crazy. |
| 1:00.8 | This one's audio only on YouTube because I've got my friends over and I have been overworking |
| 1:04.6 | myself to hell and back lately, so you seriously do not want to look at me right now. |
| 1:09.3 | We'll be back with the dog-o and the cat in the background, everything. For the people on podcast apps, well, it's the usual for you, |
| 1:15.3 | trying to cover all the meaty formats here, and it's pretty difficult. But with that out of the way, |
| 1:20.6 | but officially operating under the banner of episode 2.18, and the theme of the hour is a simple |
| 1:25.0 | grimly reality. Everything must go. Imagine a massive sprawling big box store. The fluorescent lights are flickering, half the ails are barricaded with yellow tape, the roof is leaking and the management has locked the doors from the inside. They're running a terminal clearance sale, but they aren't just selling off the surplus inventory. They're liquidating the floor models, they're ripping the copper wire out of the walls, and they are eventually going to start chemically |
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