The top marketing director for the Moscow stock exchange mysteriously died by falling from a yacht (no window this time). Serious question, could Putin be killing everyone because of paranoia? I'm fine with him turning his country into a hellhole and hope that they overthrow putin but i'm just speculating as to why.

https://www.newsweek.com/moscow-exchange-manager-drowns-mystery-death-1932553

A drone shot down a Russian chopper in the air, first time that happened

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/07/31/a-two-pound-ukrainian-drone-just-shot-down-a-12-ton-russian-helicopter/

Someone (probably in the russian military) sent a drone into the home of an opposition leader from Russia. His face is splattered and bloody from the blast, considers this his second birthday because he's a survivor.

https://ua-stena.info/en/drone-hit-the-house-of-the-russian-oppositionist/

Ukranian F-16s are only used as air defense for now

https://news.liga.net/en/politics/news/the-telegraph-f-16s-used-only-for-air-defense-so-far-air-force-doesnt-deny

Calls for Ukraine to give up territories to Russia are unacceptable, Austrian Foreign Ministry says

https://global.espreso.tv/russia-ukraine-war-austrian-foreign-ministry-says-calls-for-ukraine-to-give-up-territories-in-favour-of-russia-are-unacceptable

Well, Russia has doubled its signing bonus from 195K rubles to 400K. Reminds me of those old console war discussions lol, desperate? doomed?

https://x.com/jakluge/status/1818600986631422328

Which is not much either in the grand scheme of things - roughly 5000 USD or 4000 GBP/Euro.
Especially when you consider you’d likely be sent of one of Russia’s sucide missions they call ‘wave attacks’.

Running out of Russians.

Unemployment rate is at a historic low of just 2.5%, which is dangerous for an economy as below 3% generally means that positions can't get filled due to lack of skilled labour. Work positions are increasingly filled by Middle Eastern and African immigrants, but the rate of immigration is too low to replace the losses Russia is having on the battlefield, and not all are skilled in the fields that Russia really needs right now.

It's also showing increasingly in the Russian economy. While their huge foreign cash reserves allowed Russia to weather the storm so far, inflation is now picking up fast simply due to the lack of labour starting a pricing spiral which could go out of control if more and more increases to wages and signup bonuses are made.

Agreed.  It would seem that Russia should have a difficult time with recruiting next year, if the powers that be just don't suddenly decide to settle and make a land for peace deal or whatever.

Ukraine's campaign against russian oil seems to be working. The headline is that Gazprom's losses have doubled this year

https://kyivindependent.com/gazprom-net-losses-nearly-double-year-on-year/