Russo-Ukrainian War Thread - Page 67

The West should consider ways to stop Russia using its gold reserves to prop up the rouble, the prime minister said.

Boris Johnson's comments came as the UK announced sanctions on 65 more groups and individuals, including a private military firm and a major Russian bank.

Speaking ahead of a Nato summit, the PM said the UK and the West must "tighten the economic vice" on Vladimir Putin.

He said Russia crossed "red lines" by targeting Ukrainian civilians and tough steps now could help shorten the war.

In addition to the new raft of financial sanctions, the UK government has announced plans to send 6,000 more missiles to Ukraine.

Leaders from Nato, the EU, and the G7 are holding emergency meetings in Brussels to discuss the ongoing situation in Ukraine.

On Thursday, Nato announced the creation of new battle groups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky used a virtual address to urge the bloc to increase its supply of military equipment.

Ahead of the talks, Mr Johnson said that, by deliberately bombing civilian centres, Putin had "already crossed the red line into barbarism".

"We've got to step up. We've got to increase our support," he said.

"We've got to tighten the economic vice around Putin, sanctioning more people today, as we are, sanctioning the Wagner Group, looking at what we can do to stop Putin using his gold reserves."

In an interview with LBC, he added: "We need to do more economically.

"Can we do more to stop him [Putin] using his gold reserves, for instance, in addition to his cash reserves? The more pressure we apply now, particularly on things like gold, I believe the more we can shorten the war … And then we need to do more to give the Ukrainians military support."

As Mr Putin invaded Ukraine, the Russian Central Bank deployed some of its $640bn war chest of currency and gold reserves to prop up the Russian rouble.

On March 25 2022 03:59 ZoeHansen wrote:


Putin is a killer, he never cares about people's lives...

Russia and Ukraine exchanged 10 prisoners of war each on Thursday in what Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk called the first full-fledged swap of the month-old conflict.

The exchange also freed 19 Ukrainian civilian sailors who were captured as their ship tried to take Ukrainian troops off of Snake Island in late February.

Ukraine released 11 Russian civilian sailors as part of the deal, Vereshchuk said as she announced the transfer. The civilians had been rescued from a ship that sank near Odesa, she said.

Russia's takeover of Snake Island, also known as Zmiinyi Island, was much-discussed in the first days of the war after Ukrainian soldiers at the small military outpost in the Black Sea defied threats from a looming Russian vessel by flatly telling it, "Russian warship. Go f*** yourself."

The soldiers were initially feared to have been killed, but Russian state media later reported that they had been taken prisoner.

It wasn't immediately clear whether any Ukrainian soldiers from the island outpost were among the captives who were exchanged on Thursday — but Ukraine's border guard agency said earlier in the day that Vereshchuk was working to free soldiers who had been on Snake Island.

The Ukrainian civilian sailors freed by Russia had been aboard the Sapphire, a ship that sailed to the island on a search and rescue mission but was itself captured. As part of the exchange, Russian forces will release their ship, sending it to a dock in Turkey, Vereshchuk said.

On March 25 2022 18:01 Silvanel wrote:
Things are moving fast - EU signs new deal with US for liquified gas in order to reduce reliance on Russian gas. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60871601

That of course wont be enough, but is a move in right direction.

On March 25 2022 21:29 Biff The Understudy wrote:

Warmer days are also coming. Putin had as tight timing between the end of the olympics and the moment europeans would stop having to heat their homes, and they most definitely run out of time with their last bit of leverage.

We have to inform you about a stopped operation of all freight trains in electric traction in a transport-wise important part of Germany due to a lack of traction energy in DB Netz power supply system. Currently, all METRANS trains are affected.

With their currency in freefall, many in Russia's middle-class decided it was better to store value in goods rather than stash their hard-earned rubles under the mattress.

"I bought myself a new iPhone 13. My previous one was very old and broken," Shatalov said. "I bought a Samsung tablet. We also had our BMW serviced, and we bought new tires."

Alec Shevrin, a managing director at an investment bank in Moscow, splurged on a brand-new Lexus plug-in hybrid and a dishwasher.

"My wife and I both have newish cars, so we don't really need it," Shevrin told Insider. "But we have all these rubles, and I would rather buy something now than watch them become completely worthless."

Many Muscovites have also been stockpiling food and essentials in anticipation of shortages

Some supermarkets across Russia are already reporting a deficit in sugar and "grechka," or buckwheat, a popular Russian staple.

"We stocked up on canned corn and some olive oil," Shatalov said. "My daughter suffers from celiac disease, and it was always hard to find gluten-free stuff over here in Russia. Now it will become impossible, so we bought as much gluten-free reserves as we could."

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Viktoria Abramchenko warned on Monday against panic-buying as a number of supermarkets reported shortages due to a surge in consumer demand.

Shatalov and his family are not planning to leave the country anytime soon due to fear of Russophobia — anti-Russian sentiment — and a concern that the remaining few airlines operating in Russia are not very safe.

"I'm afraid someone will hear me speaking Russian and will slap me on my face right in the middle of the restaurant," he said. "Also, I don't want to encounter Ukrainians, and there are now millions of them in Europe. They have every right to be angry at us."

Inability to access funds is adding to frustrations

Shatalov has been able to withdraw all of his valuable foreign-exchange savings from Sberbank and VTB, Russia's two largest lenders. But he said Citi in Russia is allowing him to withdraw only a fraction of his six-figure savings.

"Citi has effectively defaulted on me," he said. "They refused not only to give me back my US dollars; they also played for time. They didn't give me a date in the future when I could come to get my money. Now Citi said I could come by on April 1 to collect just $10,000."

As a foreign citizen, the banker Chris Watson (not his real name), 43, will need a special permit to buy and sell his holdings in securities and real estate under strict new laws passed by the Kremlin.

"I bought an apartment last year in Moscow off-plans, and now I am trying to transfer it to my daughter's name, as she is a Russian citizen," said Watson, who has lived in the capital for 15 years.

Arkady Kazmin (not his real name), a senior banker at one of the few remaining foreign lenders in Moscow, is furious at the West for introducing sanctions that are hurting the very people who oppose the war.

"The sanctions introduced by Visa and Mastercard are financially paralyzing my friends who are journalists, artists, and opposition figures trying to flee the country," said Kazmin, who is planning to relocate to Dubai. "Tough life choices have been made much tougher because they can't access their funds to relocate."

The alternative payment networks to Visa and Mastercard are Russia's Mir and China's UnionPay, but reports about both are mixed at best.

"It's a rare bank that accepts these cards, and it's only accepted on most popular tourist routes and at huge shopping malls, which I tend to avoid," Shatalov said. "One needs to really want to travel to use Union, and I'm not that eager — I have traveled the world and will somehow survive."

Almost everyone Insider spoke with in Moscow cited soaring inflation as the most egregious problem

The Central Bank of Russia, which doubled the key interest rate to 20% after the invasion, will meet again on Friday to decide whether to raise rates again.

"We have been really light on risk, and we are overweight on oil, but inflation hurts everyone," said Konstantin Gusev (not his real name), a 47-year-old fund manager. "This you can't trade."

For Gusev, the crisis is a lethal cocktail reminiscent of the 1998 sovereign default, the 2008 credit crunch, and the break-up of Yukos, the oil company formerly owned by the Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who famously fell out with President Vladimir Putin.

"We are at the point of no return," said Gusev, who has sent his son to Israel to escape conscription. "And I saw the Yukos destruction when no one said it would happen. Once the machine starts, you can't stop it. That's the risk now."

Putin warned last week that Russians should be prepared for an increase in unemployment over the coming weeks, blaming the West and Russian "traitors" for attacking Russia and the Russian economy.

Putin on Friday also nominated Elvira Nabiullina to serve another five-year term at the helm of the central bank, amid widespread rumors that she tried to resign twice in disgust at the war.

Elina Ribakova, the deputy chief economist at the Institute of International Finance, warned that Russia's economy could shrink by as much as 20% in 2022 — a far cry from the 6% growth Putin has enjoyed for much of his reign.

"We have to rethink the way we think about Russia," Ribakova said in a podcast with the publication BNE IntelliNews. "We have gone from an open economy to one that is going to look more like that of Iran."

On March 25 2022 23:02 deacon.frost wrote:

Gas is used elsewhere. Not just heating/electricity. It's a part of the industrial system.

Also - Russia didn't stop gas and yet 2 days ago they stopped all the trains in Germany because of not enough electricity in the grid. And that's with the gas coming.

e.g. one of the carriers:

https://metrans.eu/restrictions-on-db-netz-infrastructure/

Edit> news about this here:
https://www.railfreight.com/railfreight/2022/03/23/german-rail-freight-stops-temporarily-after-electricity-outage/

We need pipelines, not some ships, the European consumption is huge.