Comments by "Günther Berger" (@guntherberger1238) on "Revealed! Russia’s Next-Gen Pantsir Destroys Ukraine’s UAVs in Seconds" video.

  1. Medvedev, in his new Dr Evil look, spoke almost in tears to a crowd typical of the Pootin era somewhere in the Kremlin Palace. He blamed the fact that the Soviet Union had collapsed for the so-called "special military operation" and seemed to warn of a possible disintegration of Russia
    2
  2. @User-s2f3s  The Russian coal industry, one of the largest commodity sectors of the economy with more than 30 monocities and hundreds of thousands of employees, has fallen into a severe crisis due to Western sanctions, falling demand in Asia and problems transporting products via the Russian Railways network. Two of the country's largest coal companies – "Mechel" and "Raspadskaya" – together recorded a net loss of about 50 billion rubles at the end of 2024, according to IFRS reports published on February 20 and 21. "Raspadskaya", which operates Russia's main coal mine with nearly 500 million tons of reserves, recorded a 17% drop in sales and a 36% decline in gross profit, ending the year with a net loss of $133 million compared to a profit of $440 million a year earlier. To cover liquidity bottlenecks, the company used up three-quarters of its cash reserves: From 337 million at the beginning of the year, only 87 million dollars remained by the end of December. Mechel reported a 5% drop in sales (to 335 billion rubles), a 35% decline in EBITDA and a net loss of 37 billion rubles for the year. The results of both companies are "deplorable", write PSB analysts: the weak situation in the world coal markets depressed prices, and sanctions that closed Western markets to coal producers forced them to sell products to Asia at discounts. An additional headache for "Mechel" was the sharp increase in the central bank's key interest rate. This "led to higher costs for servicing the loan portfolio and reduced free cash flow, which limited the financing of capital expenditures, repair and environmental programs," according to Mechel's press release. The company's net debt, i.e. debt not covered by cash reserves, increased by 4% year-on-year to 259.4 billion rubles, exceeding EBITDA by 4.6 times. In December, "Mechel" agreed with its main creditors – VTB and Gazprombank – on a deferral of payments: payments for 2025-26 in the amount of 35 billion rubles will be postponed to 2027-30. As for "Raspadskaya", the results were "significantly worse than expected", BCS analysts write: In the second half of the year, the company recorded a negative cash flow – the outflow from the accounts was 216 million dollars less than the inflows. Overall, according to Rosstat, the coal industry recorded a consolidated loss of 80 billion rubles in the first eleven months of last year. The sanctions became a problem for coal producers: unlike oil and gas, which Europe continues to buy, albeit in small quantities, coal is subject to a total embargo, and large coal companies, including SUEK and Mechel, have been placed on the US sanctions lists.
    1