Been a cluster of radically reduced payments for signup, delays in soldier pay, and now a drastic reduction in death benefits just in the last few weeks.

Seems like boring economic news at one level - but this is very VERY important to the essential calculus of this war. A war, remember, that from the russian side is being fought - officially - by volunteers and mercenaires. They are financially driven by definition - Not ideologically or as conscripts who have no choice.

Millions of russians and have opted in because of the life-changing money they earn on signup and upon death. If those incentives are going away, it's a massive signal that:

• Russia is no longer willing or able to spend it's way out of this war
• There has been a change in strategic urgency to maintain their current recruitment pace
• Ukraine's attacks against oil & gas facilities and the russian economy has been succesful

These are loud and clear signals that they are ramping things down - whether Mordor wants to or not. And that the political regions Russia counts on to provide low-value grunts are not receiving sufficient economic support from Moscow.

I mean - take a step back. This will absolutely reduce recruitment to near zero in these regions. At a time where daily casualty rates are regularly breaking 2,000 per day as the Russian army flounders with their tactics of 'mush forward, sit in a hole and wait to die'.

Russia isn't going to TELL you when they're collapsing. But the signs are adding up. Think about the sequence of decisions that lead to local admins curtailing death benefits - the ESSENTIAL purpose for signing up for a failing invasion. Guys that no longer have an incentive to sigup today means there are less bodies to fill the line 3 months from now. Maybe less. Trump had his balls cut off. The lines aren't moving at all. Russia is at least going through the theatrics of formal peace talks, even if their starting positions are completely absurd. Since they only understand power and pain, they would only be asking for peace, even in their obtuse masochistic way, if they have no other options.

We're very likely in the endgame here.