Ukrainecast

Putin's war economy: Are Russians feeling the pinch?

Russia has revealed it will boost its defence spending by a quarter to $145 billion in 2025. But is Putin’s war economy sustainable? What does all this mean for life in the country? And how could it impact the war?The BBC’s Steve Rosenberg joins us from a Moscow supermarket, Russian citizen ‘Gleb’ explains why there are dozens of types of cola in shops, and Bloomberg’s Stephanie Baker joins Carnegie’s Alexander Gabuev to discuss whether Russians are feeling the pinch.Today’s episode is presented by Victoria Derbyshire and Vitaly Shevchenko.
 
The producers were Arsenii Sokolov, Cordelia Hemming and Ivana Davidovic. The technical producer was Ben Andrews. The series producer is Tim Walklate. The senior news editor is Sarah Wadeson.
 
Email Ukrainecast@bbc.co.uk with your questions and comments. You can also send us a message or voice note via WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram to +44 330 1239480You can join the Ukrainecast discussion on Newscast’s Discord server here: tinyurl.com/ukrainecastdiscord

The BBC’s only English language programme entirely dedicated to the war in Ukraine and its fallout, Ukrainecast, is your go-to podcast which investigates the biggest issues around the conflict. Could Putin push the nuclear button? How could Donald Trump end the war in 24 hours? What is the price for peace? The podcast is hosted by Newsnight presenter Victoria Derbyshire and BBC Monitoring’s Vitaly Shevchenko. Ukrainecast covers the most important topics around the conflict and speaks to the real people who’ve lived through several years of war. It also brings you agenda-setting interviews with special guests each week such as UK foreign secretary David Cameron, former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo and pre-eminent Russia expert Fiona Hill.GET IN TOUCH: 
You can join our Ukrainecast online community here: tinyurl.com/ukrainecastdiscord 
Send us a message or voicenote via WhatsApp to +443301239480 
Email Ukrainecast@bbc.co.ukYou can now listen to Ukrainecast on a smart speaker. If you want to listen, just say "Ask BBC Sounds to play Ukrainecast”. It works on most smart speakers.If you want to be notified every time we publish a new episode, please subscribe to us on BBC Sounds by hitting the subscribe button on the app. If you enjoy Ukrainecast (and if you’re reading this then you hopefully do), then we think that you will enjoy some of our other pods too. See links below:The Global Story: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/w13xtvsd 
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