In its latest short term energy outlook, the EIA increased its Brent price forecast for 2025 and 2026 but still projected that the commodity will drop next year compared to 2025.
www.rigzone.com
In its 2025 budget Russia predicted that it would sell its crude at an average price of around 69 USD per barrel. That has not proved to be the case. The predicted price was subsequently revised down to less than 60 USD per barrel on average in 2025.
Rosneft and Lukoil have now been sanctioned by the US. Any company dealing with those companies will invite being itself sanctioned by the US. This news resulted in a rise in crude spot prices over supply concerns.
However, the prediction for 2026 is that there will be a potential surplus supply of several million barrels per day over demand, perhaps as much as 4 million. How many barrels a day are exported by Rosneft and Lukoil is uknown but I believe is thought to be in excess of 2 million. The bad news for Russia is that to sell its crude it will need to give an even bigger discount per barrel (currently perhaps 10 USD to 15 USD per barrel). It is likely that Russia will receive less than 40 USD per barrel in 2026 on a much reduced number of barrels sold compared to 2025. Russian government revenue from crude sales looks likely to 'fall off a cliff'.
This may prove to make it impossible for the Russian government to finance normal activities (such as paying for education, the health service, infrastructure building and maintenance, all government employees etc) in addition to the war in Ukraine.
For a long time many have predicted an imminent meltdown or a collapse of the Russian economy due to the war. I think that 2026 may be the year in which Russia does actually start to fall apart with a repeat of what happened in the 1990's.
At a time when the international situation is quite tense due to the war in Ukraine, it is claimed that the US and Europe want Russia to break up.
nfact, this is not the case at all.
Despite 16 years of economic sanctions imposed on Russia, its economic development has not stalled; on the contrary, it has accelerated in some years. The recent sanctions imposed on Rosneft and Lukoil are certainly very serious. However, their consequences are not yet known. In general, economic sanctions take a long time to have a significant impact. For example, Iran has been under heavy sanctions for 45 years, but despite the serious deterioration in its social situation, Iran has built its own national military industry during these 45 years and appears far from abandoning its nuclear program.
Why would the West want Russia to collapse?! The US fears Russia's collapse more than Russia's military power! Look at the map and imagine a collapsed Russia! Russia has thousands of nuclear weapons. Who will control them? There's no answer to this question. It's precisely this uncertainty that frightens the West most.
Who can control a weak Russia?
The West? Perhaps China?
I remember the West being very concerned about these reasons during the collapse of the USSR. However, the collapse of the USSR and the collapse of Russia are very different. Although a small portion of the nuclear weapons remained in Ukraine and Kazakhstan at the time, the West managed to persuade them to transfer them to Russia.
(Starting in 1991, the US allocated billions of dollars to Moscow over 20 years to ensure the security of Russia's nuclear arsenal.)
Another issue is that the US sees China, not Russia, as its primary rival. The US wants to use Russia against China. (Moscow understands this very well.)
If the West had wanted Russia destroyed, it could have done so 35 years ago, during Russia's worst period.
But it didn't.
It can do so now. But it doesn't. Because the West has no such intention.
Economic sanctions take a long time to affect a large country like Russia. From a military perspective, it doesn't take much time.
This situation creates a highly favorable environment for the West to swiftly crush the Russian army, which is struggling on the Ukrainian front! Ukraine is urging, even begging, the West to intervene.
But...
If the West fails to intervene militarily in the war in Ukraine, this could have very serious consequences: first for Ukraine, and then for the West.
I see no other path than the military defeat of the Russian army in Ukraine.
www.navalnews.com
www.bbc.com
www.bbc.com
has agreed contribute $1.2 Billion to thr purchase of PURL packages for Ukraine, via the United States. The Spanish contribution is enough to purchase two full packages, each valued at $500 million usd, and they will contributed $300 million usd to a third package. 
bsky.app
