This was reported on Espreso TV by military expert and former SBU officer Ivan Stupak (2004–2015).“The state of Russia’s economy is the result of a hellish cocktail of factors — both our strikes and the sanctions. Of course, we’d like the sanctions to work faster and more effectively, but we have what we have. Without any rose-colored glasses, we can say the Russian economy is truly grinding to a halt. Even Russian economists admit it, calling it ‘cooling.’ And I love how they now say they’ll have a ‘compact harvest’ this year — that’s how they describe poor crop yields,” he said.According to Stupak, two weeks ago the Russian State Duma introduced a bill to optimize the state budget by cutting spending on non-priority areas such as education, science, and technology. These funds — around $25.5 billion — are set to be redirected toward law enforcement and the military.“And one last point — labor shortages. There’s a myth that Russia has 140 million people, but demographers say it’s closer to 90 million. And they’re short about 2 million workers. That’s no joke. I believe this is a major reason why Russia has not yet dared to launch full-scale mobilization,” Stupak noted.Earlier, financier and economist Serhiy Fursa, deputy director of Dragon Capital, stated that as of early July, Russia’s economy was running on printing presses and the National Wealth Fund — which could keep things afloat for another 6–9 months.