I'm John Batchel with my good colleague Michael Bernstam in the Hoover Institution, watching Russia under severe sanctions

these years of war fighting in Ukraine. Ukraine is part of the story in the Middle East,

not only because Mr. Zelensky is now dispatching his drone experts to various Gulf countries

who have incentive to pay attention to Ukraine and to sustain it, maybe even to

provide cash or circumstances that are beneficial to Keef, but also because the Iranians can

no longer guarantee oil to China. That would seem to help Russia and its shadow fleet no longer have to discount its oil

to South India and China. But there is also the matter of the budget, which has a huge gap. It's

getting larger every time the story is told. Michael, what I understand is the windfall of these higher prices for oil cannot solve, CNBC reporting, cannot solve the damage to the Russian economy, which is inflation, which is over-reliance upon weapon systems and not providing the social net or health care or any consumer products to the public.

Is that all accurate? Or is somebody telling this story that only one side?

There is one interesting episode in the Russian policy which kind of confirms the story.

They've just issued the Russian government and the president just issued a new regulation

that all private pension funds, something similar to our 401k, about $37 billion in American money, they have to be all

consolidated in one state-managed, state-regulated fund, which account holders will have no control

over. They will still have their money, but the money will be invested in government infrastructure projects.

So generally, it is kind of nationalization of all private pension accounts.

And this way, the government will not have to allocate money from the budget for infrastructure.

And this will relieve the government and will help to finance the work.

That's why it is done.

That it is a trade-off between guns and butter, as usual.

And so this is one indication.

Another indication, they just published a statistical review of the first two months

of economic performance of Russia, and it shows that the production of oil and gas and natural

...