Investment impact of Russia Ukraine crisis

Looks like people are taking turns seizing oil tankers now. That won’t help keep energy prices down.

https://lloydslist.maritimeintelligence.informa.com/LL1141049/Two-laden-Greek-tankers-seized-by-Iranian-forces

And here’s another billion in Ukraine aid to … Raytheon.

  • EXCLUSIVE - U.S. ARMY SIGNS CONTRACT FOR $687 MILLION WORTH OF ANTI-AIRCRAFT STINGER MISSILES TO REPLENISH STOCKS SENT TO UKRAINE -SOURCES

Reporting from the war

For the western media to cover up the neo-Nazi connection in Ukraine is the biggest lie of this war. I have recently returned from two months of reporting in and around Ukraine. Certainly, both sides are guilty of atrocity but I have seen a different kind of barbarity by the AFU that is beyond the pale of war because the AFU and the Avovs consider and treat all Ukrainian Russians, Jews and even peace advocates as vermin. They have given up all morality. I can bear witness to the killings of the innocent, the torture and killings of prisoners, the firing on civilian targets, the mining of the humanitarian corridors to prevent escape, and the execution of anyone who suggests peace much less negotiation, and I have seen the Swastikas and pro-Nazi tattoos scrawled on the hands, arms, necks and chests of the AFU killers.

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Yeah, just keep in mind this guy “covers” all kinds of conspiracy theories. Hard to tell who is lying about the neo-Nazi connection. Also free bump.

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If you were in Johnson’s shoes, wouldn’t you want attention directed away from your Covid parties? Heck, directing attention anywhere else is good, but if you can frame yourself as being a wartime leader (which Britain hasn’t had since Maggie Thatcher), all the better.

When you nationalize (control) the media, you too can be a (fat boy N. Korean or Fido Castro’s brother [if he’s still alive]), and claim any silly thing you want. When your kicking back 10% to the “big guy”, international media will be overwhelmingly on your side and you can expect no investigations into anything.

Background on Ukraine corruption and our political intervention in recent years

The war has completely reinvented Zelensky, thus saving his scandal-plagued presidency marked by broken promises. As a Kyiv International Institute of Sociology poll showed, just 24 percent of voters supported him in late January. But now, thanks to the West’s embracement of the actor’s new persona which often places him beyond reproach, Zelensky has become the recipient of unqualified adoration and enormous amounts of international aid money. “Before the war the U.S. was sending $300 million per year to Ukraine,” said to NPR Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for International and Strategic Studies. “Now, we’re providing $100 million a day” to what was until recently considered “the most corrupt nation in Europe,” reports (of all newspapers) The Guardian .

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Ouch! There’s something to take the shine off of our “present-day Churchill.”

Since the Pandora Papers were released to the media, I’m surprised (well, not really) that our vaunted liberal media hasn’t jumped all over the corruption that is taking food out of babies’ mouths, and hurting the “most vulnerable” of Ukraine, and other VCs.

investing perspective from a regular Russian caught up in all the sanctions and rules.

https://community.rationalreminder.ca/t/geopolitical-risk-on-a-live-example-im-from-russia/17080/5

His Russian listed foreign index ETFs, that held US or western stocks as part of a diversified portfolio, are now frozen and don’t trade (much like the US froze three US listed ETFs that held Russian stocks like RSX). Some foreign banks forced their Russian customers to cash out everything and return it to Russian banks, where they got a bad exchange rate into rubles. Interactive Brokers features favorably compared to others. He left Russia when it was still easy to get out, but almost no one will let him open a bank account as a Russian, etc.

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“European resolve” - an oxymoron

Europeans have forever been a bunch of weenies. Nothing has changed.

Diplomats and officials are getting increasingly frustrated the EU may be reaching the limits of the short-term pain it can inflict on Russia already three months after its invasion of Ukraine.

Member states are failing to deliver on promises to hit President Vladimir Putin where it hurts: the lucrative energy industry. The focus has been on Hungary’s refusal to back sanctions, but other countries are yielding to Putin’s demands for gas payments in rubles.

Oooh Oooh Big Shock!

(not)

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More admissions of Ukraine military defeats, stories from the front lines.

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have been pushing peace talks, and top Italian officials submitted a peace plan to the United Nations that would freeze the current front lines, leading to a significant loss of territory for Ukraine.

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Well, yeah, delivering on those promises would hurt - hurt themselves. Are we really going to criticize countries for not intentionally shooting themselves in the foot (and leg, and arm, and chest)? I know it’s the Democratic party line to claim that since one group (us) is suffering painful consequences, everyone should willingly suffer those same painful consequences in the name of equity. But I dont blame anyone for not buying into our own self-righteous arrogant grandstanding, and instead focusing on making sure their own citizens are able to survive without completely destroying their quality of life.

As you love to point out, shiobi, it’s all about the money. Certain factions love energy embargos, because they lower supply and thus spike prices - putting a ton of extra money in certain people’s pockets. That’s all that has really been accomplished over the past 3 months.

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But a loss of territory is unacceptable, you say? Well, that’s what happens when you lose. And the only way this ends anytime soon is by declaring a winner and a loser. Why must we keep flushing money down the toilet, when without compromise, the inevitable end is Ukraine eventually getting wiped from the map anyways? It’s about time that, if Ukraine refuses to accept this reality, that they are left to deal with the consequences on their own.

If they desperately need all the US arms and money just to hold on, are they actually winning anything? It’s getting close to where Ukraine is the handicapped kid on the basketball team, who gets put in for the last game and everyone goes out of their way to help him score a basket. It creates a nice feel-good story, but as far as having any tangible effect it’s a complete farce.

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Record dividends for Russian shareholders. But maybe not US Russian share holders.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-30/rosneft-plans-to-pay-record-high-annual-dividend-on-oil-s-rally

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No lies too bold for drumming up western aid?

Russia continues to cash in on the higher prices from sanctions and the war.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-06-01/has-sanctioning-russia-worked-oil-gas-sales-put-285b-in-putin-s-pocket

President Joe Biden stood in the White House and said they wanted to deal a “powerful blow to Putin’s war machine.” But as the war in Ukraine approaches its 100th day, that machine is still very much operational. Russia is being propelled by a flood of cash that could average $800 million a day this year — and that’s just what the commodity superpower is raking in from oil and gas.

For years, Russia has acted as a vast commodity supermarket selling what an insatiable world has needed: Not just energy, but wheat, nickel, aluminum and palladium too…

Even with some countries halting or phasing out energy purchases, Russia’s oil-and-gas revenue will be about $285 billion this year, according to estimates from Bloomberg Economics based on Economy Ministry projections. That would exceed the 2021 figure by more than one-fifth. Throw in other commodities, and it more than makes up for the $300 billion in foreign reserves frozen as part of the sanctions.

Russia’s top oil producers made their highest combined profit in almost a decade in the first quarter, Moscow-based SberCIB Investment Research estimates. And wheat exports continue — at higher prices — as sanctions on Russian agriculture aren’t even being discussed because the world needs its grain.

The ruble has become another symbol used by Putin to project strength. Once mocked by Biden as “rubble” when it initially collapsed in response to the sanctions, it’s since been propped up by Russia to become the world’s best-performing currency against the dollar this year.

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bump

More commentary on oil, embargo’s and how that’s going for EU sanctions, banning insurance on ships moving their oil, etc.

More weapons for Ukraine, including ones that can strike into Russia.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-31/biden-says-us-will-provide-advanced-rocket-systems-to-ukraine?srnd=premium#xj4y7vzkg

President Joe Biden said he’ll give Ukraine advanced rocket systems and other weapons, as US officials rejected Russian claims that the move will escalate the war that’s dragging into its fourth month. The package of weapons includes missiles that will let Ukraine strike locations as far as 80 kilometers (50 miles) away, a senior US official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

Shockingly, NYT blaming the US for continuing the war… peace may be getting closer.

But the United States has helped turn this tragic, local and ambiguous conflict into a potential world conflagration. By misunderstanding the war’s logic, Mr. Guaino argues, the West, led by the Biden administration, is giving the conflict a momentum that may be impossible to stop. He is right.

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Another long time diplomat speculates on Putin’s motivations.

Harald Malmgren is a geopolitical strategist, negotiator and former aide to Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford

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US escalating risks in the war by giving longer range weapons that will allow Ukraine to strike Russia directly. They aren’t supposed to, but in war shit happens and Russia is threatening attacks on the West if this occurs.

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Correct. But Ukraine is losing at this point, both territory and significant, impactful numbers of soldiers. Their only hope is to broaden the war, thereby diverting Russian military power to other places outside Ukraine.

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But doesnt launching long-range weapons into Russian territory only incentivize Russia to come after them even harder, in order to neutralize those weapons?

Sad thing is how if Russia follows through on this threat, it’ll be sold - by the White House and the media - as being an “unprovoked” atrocity. Like the 3 year old in the kitchen covered in a bag of flour, insisting he “didnt do anything”.

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