How Fast Does Russia Collapse? My Russia Collapse Meter Can Show You
My hands-on scorecard to test sanctions, oil flows, and Putin’s staying power
If the Kremlin starts a shooting war with NATO, judgement about endurance must be clear, fast, and serious. I made the Russia Collapse Scorecard for that test.
. It is a simple, interactive calculator that turns real policy levers—secondary sanctions, maritime interdiction, oil disruption, frozen-asset confiscation, and coercive controls—into timelines and signals anyone can understand. For me, visualising the impact a certain measure of indictor has, or could, is difficult. Pop that into a dashboard that measures the influence of different measures, et voila, clarity.
And it’s fun. It simply opens in your browser. There is no backend, so there are no security concerns for you. Once you set a scenario you like, you can save it with a copy link at the top. I have inserted some instructions in the bottom right for embedding it in your own work (with attribution, please)
Importantly, my meter does not guess battlefield outcomes (maybe that can be my next project). It measures how long a regime and war machine which depend on oil cash, imported parts, and organised fear can keep moving once pressure tightens.
What the scorecard measures—and why it matters
The scorecard asks a blunt question in plain terms: how fast does Russia’s war economy break under a NATO war? It offers five readouts that matter for strategy and public debate:
Months to acute fiscal crunch — a runway estimate as export revenues and buffers collide with enforcement and interdiction. (This crash meter is my favourite feature)
Year-one GDP change — an envelope for real-economy contraction when finance, imports, and logistics stall.
Inflation peak (CPI) — price pressure from FX pass-through and scarcity, trimmed on the surface by price controls.
Industrial output fall — the hit to import-dependent lines such as aviation, autos, electronics, optics, and precision machinery.
Oil & gas budget revenue hit — a quick proxy for the treasury’s lifeblood.
These outputs speak to the same core reality: modern war demands money, machinery, and confidence in supply. When finance tightens and shipping grows risky, cash thins and factories start to cannibalise parts. When repression holds prices down, shortages appear. The scoreboard lets readers see that sequence rather than argue about slogans.
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Grounded defaults, transparent logic
The defaults reflect public indicators any reasonable reader can check. Military outlays sit near Cold War levels as a share of GDP. Macro momentum slows under tight money. Energy revenue remains the central artery while enforcement pressure rises. The model does not hide its workings:
Runway (months to fiscal crunch) starts at eight months. It shortens with heavier oil disruption, tougher secondary sanctions, stronger shadow-fleet interdiction, and asset confiscation. It lengthens with a larger liquid share of the National Wealth Fund, higher China/India backfill, and greater repression capacity.
GDP in year one starts at −4% and shifts with oil disruption, sanctions friction, rail weakness, and partial relief from backfill.
Inflation peak starts at 11% and rises with FX and scarcity while repression lowers the recorded figure at the cost of queues.
Industrial output focuses on sanction-sensitive sectors where missing chips, tools, bearings, and speciality chemicals bite first.
A collapse meter blends runway and severity into a single index so readers can see whether a scenario sits in “resilient,” “severe strain,” or “acute crisis” territory.
This is an educational tool, not an oracle. It lets you test claims and assumptions and see how much each lever changes the timeline.
How to read the scorecard
Begin with a preset—Base case, Max pressure, or Leaky sanctions. Then move one slider at a time. Five readouts update instantly: months to fiscal crunch, year-one GDP, inflation peak, industrial output, and the oil-revenue hit. Turn backfill up and the runway stretches a little. Tighten secondary sanctions or maritime interdiction and the meter tilts towards crisis. The model stays conservative and explainable. It shows how enforcement and logistics, rather than wishful talk, drive endurance.
As one simple example, if you are of the view we can “leverage” China and India away from supporting Russia, and stop buying Russian oil, shift that and see what impact that could have on Russian collapse; does it save Russia, or hurt Russia? That is, can us getting China and India to back off play a serious role in expediting Russia’s collapse? Tha answer is yes. Check it out.
Why these levers matter
Defence spending (% of GDP). War budgets near seven per cent of output strain a state even before escalation. Push that higher during a big war and the fiscal window narrows.
Oil export disruption. Finance follows barrels. Insurance bans, tighter price enforcement, and ship-level sanctions do more than speeches. When safe routes close, discounts widen and cargoes stall.
Secondary sanctions severity. Compliance fear rewires trade in days. When the choice is Russia’s business or access to Western markets and finance, banks and shippers choose survival.
Shadow-fleet interdiction. Policy becomes concrete when a hull is seized or blacklisted. Each ship off the water means fewer barrels moving and deeper discounts for those that do.
China/India backfill. Friendly trade and finance soften the blow but rarely replace the scale, safety, and pricing of Western finance and maritime services.
National Wealth Fund (liquid share). Liquidity buys time. It does not buy capability, and it is finite.
Rail freight trend. A blunt but useful signal for supply-chain health. When loads sag, factories struggle and inventories thin.
Repression capacity. Capital controls and price orders extend survival on paper. They also spread shortages and crush productivity.
Frozen-asset confiscation. Immobilisation hurts; confiscation changes stakes. It removes a future bargaining chip and deepens the break with Western finance.
I did not build this as an academic curiosity. These are the choices that change timelines in a war of endurance.
What you learn when you move the sliders
You will see finance crack first, then export cash thin, imports stall, industry degrade, prices jump, buffers buy time, repression buy a little more, and structures bend. That sequence is not new; it is how pressure works against a modern, import-dependent industrial base. The scorecard does not promise collapse on day one. It shows why the countdown shortens when enforcement is tight and shipping grows costly.
What this implies for deterrence
Clear timelines shape policy. When readers see how secondary sanctions discipline and maritime enforcement pull months off the runway, debates about “tough talk” give way to concrete levers. When they see how backfill buys only limited time, claims about easy workarounds lose shine. The scoreboard is hawkish by design: it assumes that strong, lawful enforcement, backed by allies, changes behaviour faster than speeches.
Limits and fair use
The model is conservative and transparent. It uses public (populated with real data) indicators and simple functions, not black-box tricks. It cannot price battlefield shocks or elite bargains. It does not predict regime collapse by economics alone. It gives you a clean way to test claims and see the cost of choices in weeks and months, not in airy abstractions.
The bottom line
Deterrence rests on capacity and resolve. Russia holds energy and food and deploys coercion at home. None of that equals resilience against a sanctions-armed alliance. When safe routes for oil close, finance tightens, and import-heavy industry starves of parts, the machine labours under its own weight. The Russia Collapse Scorecard turns that logic into something a reader can test in seconds. If Moscow chooses escalation, the runway shortens. The meter moves.
Open the scorecard: stress-test Russia’s war economy now → Iselin’s Russia Collapse Meter
My work is reader-funded — no ads, no sponsors, no algorithms.
If this resonated with you, you can power the next one with a tip. Even €2 helps me carve time for deeper stories.
👉 Support by buying me a coffee ☕ Think of it as funding the thought-provoking and informative writing you wish existed more often.
References
International Monetary Fund. (2025, July). World Economic Outlook Update: Tenuous resilience amid persistent uncertainty. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2025/07/29/world-economic-outlook-update-july-2025
International Monetary Fund. (2025). Russian Federation — Country page. https://www.imf.org/en/Countries/RUS
SIPRI. (2025, April 28). Trends in world military expenditure, 2024. https://www.sipri.org/publications/2025/sipri-fact-sheets/trends-world-military-expenditure-2024
SIPRI. (2025, April 28). Unprecedented rise in global military expenditure as European and Middle East spending surges. https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2025/unprecedented-rise-global-military-expenditure-european-and-middle-east-spending-surges
Bank of Russia. (2025, July). Consumer price dynamics (No. 7/2025). https://www.cbr.ru/Collection/Collection/File/57181/CPD_2025-07_e.pdf
Bank of Russia. (2025, September). Macroeconomic survey — Analysts’ forecasts. https://www.cbr.ru/eng/statistics/ddkp/mo_br/
Council of the European Union. (2024, February 12). Immobilised Russian assets: Council decides to set aside extraordinary revenues. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2024/02/12/immobilised-russian-assets-council-decides-to-set-aside-extraordinary-revenues/
Council of the European Union. (2024, May 21). Council greenlights the use of net windfall profits to support Ukraine. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2024/05/21/extraordinary-revenues-generated-by-immobilised-russian-assets-council-greenlights-the-use-of-windfall-net-profits-to-support-ukraine-s-self-defence-and-reconstruction/
International Energy Agency. (2025, June 17). Oil Market Report – June 2025. https://www.iea.org/reports/oil-market-report-june-2025
International Energy Agency. (2025, September 11). Oil Market Report – September 2025. https://www.iea.org/reports/oil-market-report-september-2025
Russian Railways. (2025, August). Investor relations — Freight loading volumes (July 2025). https://eng.rzd.ru/en/9501
Russian Railways. (2025). The Company — Summary updates (August 2025). https://eng.rzd.ru/en/9498
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