Yeah... And the second source cited in article, VChK-OGPU "outlet" is an anonymous channel in Telegram, that published information from "an anonymous source". Doesn't sound trustworthy.

Can you link me to some info about this person and why they're a clown?

Are you claiming Newsweek is not reputable? I bet you also think Fox News is fake news. Or New^s York Times is clickbait. News is right there in the title, game over. /s

More like "booming" as "exploding", I suppose?

Railways are actually super important though. They can transport more cargo than any other means. Especially heavy stuff like artillery guns and armored vehicles. It doesn't matter if you have 10,000 Artillery guns, if you can't get them to the front.

Oh I like this topic! Fun fact, Ball Bearings are actually a SUPER important little thing and a major hallmark component of the industrial revolution. You need to be able to make really good ball bearings in order to make a rotating joint that's just decent, and churning out perfect little spheres by the tens of thousands was one of the first tests of the modern world's capacity to make things in industrial quantity.

Basically, a standard rotating joint (simplified) has an inner metal band, eight ball bearings equally spaced around the inner metal band, and an outer metal band that traps all the ball bearings between it and the inner metal band. This means that the two bands can be rotated with incredibly low friction and relatively low wear. This is used in basically every machine with moving parts, and trains absolutely fit that criteria.

But it's definitely not operated with zero wear, especially in machines that are constantly operated and weigh a lot, like trains. Ball Bearings can and will wear down during operation and need to be replaced semi-frequently.

As for buying them from China... I would assume that's totally possible, but China might not have enough stock, or they could be trying to leverage their position to sell the ball bearings at a high markup since Russia doesn't have the ability to buy elsewhere.

The Chinese ones are just malteasers painted silver

A LOT of devices with moving parts, especially heavy ones, rely on ball bearings. As for the second part of your question, I just don’t know.

You could, it, ball bearings are a thing that frequently high precision, both in the metallurgy and in the machining and hardening.

And trains require that high precision. Keep in mind depending on where it’s at, that bearing might be getting exposed to high temperatures, heavy loads, and lots of friction. They may be custom diameters and are ordered with some really tight tolerances.

These particular bearings aren’t just found on Amazon and shipped the next day. China may not have the capacity to meet the demand (and it is a strategic resource, so they may not want to anyhow.)

Even then, they’re not the kind of ally who just bails out your national economy with out a quo to go with that quid, if you know what I mean. (My assumption is that China is backing Russia to turn them into a vassal state, like North Korea. Or get concessions on their disputed borders, etc.)

Then we’ll find that Russia can function just fine in a collapsed state. Not for any measure of human wellbeing, though as they say, never underestimate the Russian people’s capacity for suffering. It’ll be a miserable, decrepit orc kingdom, but will still be able to do a lot of damage with just the blunt force of its mass.