The curse of natural resources, plus the curse of being Russia. They don’t even need a tax base.

For most of the last decade, Igor Gladkoborodov worked his way up in Moscow’s vibrant high-tech scene, going from web developer to co-founder of an online-video startup that drew $3.5 million in local funding.

Last month, he abandoned Moscow for Menlo Park, California, joining a growing flow of professionals leaving Russia amid recession, deepening international isolation and tightening regulation of the Internet.

“Five years ago, there was still hope that things would change for the better,” says Gladkoborodov, 32, who moved with his wife and two young sons. “Now it’s clear that Russia is facing a long systemic crisis,” he adds. In Silicon Valley, he says he regularly meets others from Moscow who’ve left.

Official statistics show the number of Russian citizens leaving permanently or for more than nine months reached 53,235 in 2014, up 11 percent and the highest in nine years. Germany, the U.S. and Israel all report increases in the numbers of applications for immigration visas from Russia.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-21/putin-faces-growing-exodus-as-russia-s-banking-tech-pros-flee

https://twitter.com/DevinAckles/status/629246448354336768/photo/1

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/09/us-ukraine-crisis-exclusive-idUSKCN0R924G20150909

“The Cossacks are facing reprisals” from the separatists, Lyubov A. Korsakova, the editor of a Cossack newspaper, the Front Bulletin, said in an interview here in the traditional Cossack capital. “They started to disarm the Cossacks, and not only to disarm them, but to kill them.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/world/europe/cossacks-face-reprisals-as-rebel-groups-clash-in-eastern-ukraine.html?_r=0

“They can’t afford to run deficits at all. By the end of next year there won’t be any money left in the oil reserve fund,” said Lubomir Mitov from Unicredit. The finance ministry admits that the funds will be exhausted within sixteen months on current policies.

Alexei Kudrin, the former finance minister, said the Kremlin has no means of raising large loans to ride out the oil bust. The pool of internal savings is pitifully small.

Any attempt to raise funds from the banking system would aggravate the credit crunch. He described the latest efforts to squeeze more money out of Russia’s energy companies as the “end of the road”.

Mr Kudrin resigned in 2011 in protest over Russia’s military build-up, fearing that it would test public finances to breaking point. Events are unfolding much as he suggested.

http://www.businessinsider.com/here-are-all-the-places-where-russia-tried-to-manipulate-the-outcome-of-the-mh17-investigation-2015-10

This July video shows Donetsk getting mortared at a time when Ukrainian mortars were way out of range.

The US is 373 / 100,000.

http://ukraineunderattack.org/en/25542-ssu-detained-lviv-separatists-funded-by-russia.html

http://pravda.dn.ua/details/255497/

(July)

http://lugansk-news.com/russian-army-officer-captured-on-ukrainian-checkpoint-near-donetsk-with-a-truck-full-of-ammo/