BestWorld’s question “Will Russia change its key interest rate in 2026?” was resolved as yes, with its Central Bank dropping its key rate from 16% to 15.5%, despite surging inflation.
Phillp Godzin’s and Jeremy Lichtman’s bots were great today at picking up this news fast, and in recent weeks had already been high on this likelihood.
Feb 16, 2026
BestWorld’s question “Will Russia change its key interest rate in 2026?” was resolved as yes, with its Central Bank dropping its key rate from 16% to 15.5%, despite surging inflation.
Phillp Godzin’s and Jeremy Lichtman’s bots quickly picked up the news this morning. They also had been high on the likelihood of a change for weeks, contrary to most experts cited by Bloomberg saying that Russia would hold the rate steady. It looks like both bots paid attention to the its recent drops instead of the opinions of experts.
Bestworld is relaunching the question, this time about the likelihood of another decrease this year.
In my humble opinion, an increase in the interest rate would mean that Putin is fighting inflation to shore up support of his public.
A decrease would have shored up support among the oligarchs. This also is crucial, as many have private armies.
Because Putin chose increased inflation, this suggests that the Russia/Ukraine war is nearing its culmination, famously defined by Carl von Clausewitz as when the attacker can proceed no further due to exhaustion of its resources. At that point, either the aggressor achieves an armistice, as in the Korean War, or fruitlessly continues to attack, inviting total defeat. This occurred with Germany in both WW I and WW II.
More signs of culmination:
Recently, Ukraine retook five villages across a 30-kilometer (19-mile) front near the city of Hulyaipole.
Russia has inadvertently aided Ukraine with “mass executions of their own servicemen, systematic extortion, and illegal trafficking of weapons among the front-line Russian officers directly in charge of soldiers.”
Ukraine is preserving the lives of its troops via improvements and increasing production of ground and aerial drones, some of the latter released from high-altitude balloons.
SpaceX has recently deactivated Russia’s bootlegged Starlink terminals
Therefore, it is likely that soon the front line will freeze. Then, Putin will announce a ceasefire to make it look like the freeze was his idea. Following this, a Korea-stye armistice. Indeed, Russian ceasefire or armistice this year is one of our forecasting questions on Bestworld, by Phillp Godzin’s and Jeremy Lichtman’s bots.
I’m forecasting not until 2027, maybe later. I think that Putin is similar to the darn fool who led Germany to its second 20th-century wipeout in 1945, due to his seven years of war. Putin is only up to three years of his full-scale war on Ukraine, still says he’s winning.
https://bestworld.io/phils-bot-beats-experts-on-will-russia-change-its-key-interest-rate/
https://bestworld.io/jeremys-bot-beats-experts-on-will-russia-change-its-key-interest-rate/