Yeah exactly, turns out it's the material economy that actually produces things that really matters.

In fact, Russia might be the only European economy to have growth at this point.

My understanding of the ruble slump is that it is due primarily to the need to acquire foreign currency, particularly factoring in conditions of sanctions. I’d imagine this is mostly a short term worry ? I have lots of questions about how valuations of currencies like this will change as they rely less on USD trade going forward.

Also curious, I know we have some Russia based users on the board, has the devaluation impacted local economy and workers in particular in substantial ways ? Or is it just more media hype

I don't think Russia is really in a war economy yet. They've ramped up military production, but life in Russia is basically unchanged for the civilian population.

Russia at the moment is not in a war economy, in fact this is one of the things that some of the more hardcore elements in Russia are criticising. The current government has approached this conflict in such a way as to try to cause as little disruption to normal life in Russia as possible, even when this came at a disadvantage on the battlefield, because their primary priority is internal stability and because they seem confident that time is on their side in Ukraine (and it's starting to look like they were right).

There has been a considerable increase in the rate of production of military equipment but there hasn't been any kind of major dislocation of the civilian economy in order to reorient it towards war like happened during WWII in all major participants. There also hasn't been any kind of big draft or conscription drive, and with the exception of a callup of some reservists last year they have mostly relied on volunteer and professional soldiers.

So the vast majority of the population has been essentially completely unaffected. Only thing worth mentioning is that there have been some minor inconveniences due to the sanctions, like making it more difficult (but not impossible) to find western luxury brands or go on vacation to Europe...you know the kind of things that would bother the upper middle class but that the average worker would be pretty much indifferent to.

We could argue whether this is the right approach or not. As a communist i would personally be in favor of some kind of mobilization of a war economy because a war economy is a more planned economy and would come with a significant degree of centralization and of reduction of liberal market mechanisms. That would be a step in the right direction, but i also acknowledge that it may be destabilizing for the society if forced through when the people don't see it as necessary.