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Ukraine

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Politico explainer (one day old) on how the financial sanctions will work.
https://www.politico.eu/article/west-targets-russias-defenses-against-ruble-crash-bank-run/
Based on what is happening to the ruble this morning (>20% down in a couple of hours), it seems accurate.
Interesting that Russia's reserves (June numbers) had a higher euro component (>1/3) than dollar (< 1/6), that the total FX reserves at risk are >60% of the total, and that even the 130 billion in gold is problematic (who to sell it to, and how to get it there?).
 
PsB said:
even the 150 in gold is problematic (who to sell it to, and how to get it there?).
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I wonder if that's true. I'm sure China would be a buyer if the price was right. And there are land routes to the Chinese border.

I see Russian markets are suspended until 3pm local time today.
 
simon g said:
Russia raising interest rates to 20% and requiring companies to sell foreign currencies. It's going to be a very turbulent time for business globally, right on top of all the C19 related issues

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-60542877?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=621c759c0ce87e491a0ed75b&Russian central bank hikes interest rates&2022-02-28T07:23:31.233Z&ns_fee=0&pinned_post_locator=urn:asset:e3a765f3-46a3-489a-92e6-ae2831b1cc8d&pinned_post_asset_id=621c759c0ce87e491a0ed75b&pinned_post_type=share
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I fear the economic damage is the least of our worries. One country has been invaded already and threats to invade more have been publicly made.
 
foxwelljsly said:
Any other wheat growers here? Looks like our crop will be worth more this year, but the price of fertiliser might go through the roof.

I am shit scared of the maniac Putin having his finger on the button. I suspect the Ukrainian resistance is being overstated for propaganda purposes, that heavy artillery will start raining down on Kiev and Khargov and that Putin will have an interminable battle of occupation on his hands. What a deluded autocratic narcissist might do under these circumstances should be of concern to everyone everywhere.
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Tricky year ahead, if it's dry our energy costs will be horrific too. We irrigate onions and potatoes so diesel and electricity will be a problem. Just delivered another load of broilers which needed 8 loads of LPG which cost an arm and leg.
Luckily cleared out our local dealer at £515 for his last stocks of Nitrogen before Christmas. This is the first year we haven't been 100% milling wheat as the premium over fertiliser and fungicides wasn't enough last year!

I've only sold 10 loads of Skyfall forward so far, looks a bad deal now.
 
NeilR said:
I am more than happy to be wrong on this.

however, posts upthread and opinions from people elsewhere did lead quite strongly to that impression.
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I don't think anyone is blaming the EU or NATO for Putin's attack on Russia, only Putin is to blame for that. However, from a geopolitical point of view, both the EU and its member countries have either accommodated Putin for their own ends, or directly poked him in the eye, and are thus to some degree culpable for giving him the confidence and the justification, however twisted, to do this. Its hardly as if Putin were an unknown quantity.
 
lagavullin10y said:
thats a very well written article. The guy should write a book
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So good I have pasted a part of it below:


Nations are ultimately built on stories. Each passing day adds more stories that Ukrainians will tell not only in the dark days ahead, but in the decades and generations to come. The president who refused to flee the capital, telling the US that he needs ammunition, not a ride; the soldiers from Snake Island who told a Russian warship to “go **** yourself”; the civilians who tried to stop Russian tanks by sitting in their path. This is the stuff nations are built from. In the long run, these stories count for more than tanks.

The Russian despot should know this as well as anyone. As a child, he grew up on a diet of stories about Russian bravery in the siege of Leningrad. He is now creating more such stories, but casting himself in the role of Hitler.
 
eternumviti said:
I don't think anyone is blaming the EU or NATO for Putin's attack on Russia, only Putin is to blame for that. However, from a geopolitical point of view, both the EU and its member countries have either accommodated Putin for their own ends, or directly poked him in the eye, and are thus to some degree culpable for giving him the confidence and the justification, however twisted, to do this. Its hardly as if Putin were an unknown quantity.
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If "only Putin is to blame", then EU and NATO are not responsible. Yet you seem to want to imply responsibility through inaction or provocation. So, which is it?
 
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There was a very interesting series of documentaries on Aljazeera by an independent Russian about Russia as was, couple of years back.
Main take away was that most Russians *knew* that Russia was on its own and every other country was against them
 
eternumviti said:
Its hardly as if Putin were an unknown quantity.
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Only up to a point, it seems to me. Everyone has assumed that Putin, no matter what his imperial pretensions, was a rational actor and could be counted upon to come right up to the brink, but not actually fall over. He has proved everyone wrong - this is an act of sheer lunacy. In one fell swoop, he has reinforced both the Ukranian sense of nationhood and NATO's solidarity, the two things he was apparently seeking to undermine. It even has Finland and Sweden contemplating membership. Meanwhile, the rouble disappears even further into the basement. The guy has egg all over his face. He has gone out on a limb and is blindly sawing through it.

The west needs to punish him severely - but it also needs to provide a way for him to climb down before the limb is completely sawn through. Otherwise, he might become even more desperate. Richard Nixon was, I think, the first to use the "madman" theory of international relations, i.e. to give opponents the impression that he might be sufficiently bananas to unleash nuclear Armageddon. Putin is now utilising the same language. The worry is that he really is sufficiently bananas to follow through with at least tactical nuclear strikes, e.g. on a Ukranian city pour encourager les autres, as Voltaire famously put it.
 
gustav_errata said:
If "only Putin is to blame", then EU and NATO are not responsible. Yet you seem to want to imply responsibility through inaction or provocation. So, which is it?
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I think I made myself perfectly clear.

The answer is both. Only Putin is responsible for pressing the button. The EU and NATO (and their member states, including the UK) must both bear varying degrees of culpability, through inaction, permissiveness, and through provocation. As I said, Putin is a known quantity, but self-interest made us look the other way.
 
Friends - as some of you may know, I'm from Ukraine and I'm about to start a thread in the "charity" room to start collections for the brave volunteers defending my home city of Zaporizhya. Tony's ok with it.

The problem is while I've got PayPal and a bank account obviously, I'm sure there are better / more secure ways of collecting donations. Any help and advice appreciated.

Vitaly
 
eternumviti said:
I think I made myself perfectly clear.

The answer is both. Only Putin is responsible for pressing the button. The EU and NATO (and their member states, including the UK) must both bear varying degrees of culpability, through inaction, permissiveness, and through provocation. As I said, Putin is a known quantity, but self-interest made us look the other way.
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If we're starting a blame game for the problems with Putin's Russia, we should start much closer to home with the UK government's enabling of Putin's power base through providing opportunities for Russian oligarchs' money-laundering and offshoring ill-gotten gains. If we hadn't done that, Putin would not have had such an easy task digging himself such an entrenched power base, and no amount of EU and NATO permissiveness and provocation would have had an effect if Putin were not in such an unassailable domestic position.
 
eternumviti said:
I don't think anyone is blaming the EU or NATO for Putin's attack on Russia, only Putin is to blame for that. However, from a geopolitical point of view, both the EU and its member countries have either accommodated Putin for their own ends, or directly poked him in the eye, and are thus to some degree culpable for giving him the confidence and the justification, however twisted, to do this. Its hardly as if Putin were an unknown quantity.
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The Russia report, as curtailed as it is, still suggests that the UK is at least as complicate as anyone else, and the Tory government itself even more so.
 
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