Please use this thread to continue discussing the war in Ukraine.
All mod instructions from the previous thread remain in force here
Original thread:
It's never really been about the majority of ordinary, poor Russians. They're outside the elite. Outside the bubble of indulged Russians who buy high-end 'Western' clothes, cars, jewellery, holiday in Italy, France, educate their kids in expensive schools etc. They're reliant on internal media much more so than the upper middle class Muscovites who know what's going on but also know that they're on the pigs back, so why rock the boat. They're exactly the sort of people who need to start feeling the pain of Putin's folly - if they can escape conscription at the expense of the ordinary poor 'Russians', then they can at least start to feel the boot on their neck economically.
Im not a finance guru at all .. so a Q.
What is it about this new tranche of U.S. sanctions vs previous sanctions in general that has forced Moscow Exchange to suspend trading in dollars, euros & cause possible runs? If this is the reaction in Russia WHY havent these kind of sanctions been used alot sooner? Is it a timing type of thing? Other things needed to be in place for these sanctions to be effective? What type of "deadly" sanctions are these?
EDIT: AHA, found out:
"A new tranche of U.S. sanctions against Russian financial institutions forcibly suspended trading of Dollar & Euro on Moscow Exchange.
Companies, Banks & investors can’t trade Dollar or Euro via a central exchange. These entities will be forced to trade OTC."
So the Q still needs answering. Why so late with these very effective sanctions? Why not way sooner?
My understanding is that the Russian financial system has been sanctioned as far as possible already.
These are secondary sanctions, tightening on other backdoor methods via third countries
The Russian stock exchange was directly targeted in last round of sanctions
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-12/moscow-exchange-halts-dollar-euro-trading-on-new-us-sanctions
they literally can’t get dollars/euros etc
and more sanctions were announced since as I posted higher up this time going after Russian IT industry directly and Russian banks and their offices outside of Russia
One of the results is that there is no longer an official exchange rate, there will either be what black market says it is (real rate) and what Kremlin will say it is (imaginary rate) which no one will actually be able to avail of
Would i be right in saying that these new sanctions secondary or whatever seem to be having an IMMEDIATE & visible impact vs all other past sanctions? So is the answer to my Q - Its a timing thing, other sanctions needed to be in place first?
As to what these new visibly EFFECTIVE sanctions are:
And this is an interesting tweet showing the big falls
As I mentioned earlier - "Putin & Co will no doubt engineer something. Mention they are prepared for this blah blah." - This it?
Could this been done two years ago, yes
Why wasn’t it done? That’s a good question I hope journalists hound the Biden administration on why it took so long to get here and why more is not being done!
It seems some time in December the Biden administration had enough of all the loopholes and started going after the financial industry directly, that’s about time Chinese, Turkish, Cypriot, UAE etc banks started dropping Russian customers
Now imho all of these sanctions still don’t go far enough as all they do is target individuals and companies (the list is very very long now) instead of a blanket ban on all Russians and everyone even remotely connected to Russia
So there will remain banks in questionable places that still facilitate Russian criminals, but maybe that’s the aim here, funnel the Russians to use a small number of dodgy banks where the CIA can overview all the transactions 😄
Quite likely and they'll get by. But it's long past time the comfortable Russian middle & professional classes in Moscow and other cities, started to feel the heat big time. They need to understand they are despised pariahs.
Yes, but how long is "Long"? Currently Putin is burning through the national reserves at an incredible rate, and when that fizzles out what happens? Will China, Iran and NK advance unlimited lines of credit to Putin? Thats something that I doubt very much, considering that that "Unlimited Support" does not mean unlimited financial support. Those "3 Friends" are currently taking Putin for every cent they can.
Seems it’s starting to dawn on “some” Russians that being stupid is counterproductive to their aims
Hammering more nails into the Russia Fed coffin - UK has joined US with these visibly EFFECTIVE sanctions:
And RE CHINA in all this:
Go Yuan: Russian subsidiaries of Chinese banks have now suspended payments in dollars and euros
The subsidiaries of Chinese banks in Russia have suspended foreign trade settlements in dollars and euros due to US sanctions against the Moscow Exchange, Reuters writes.
https://x.com/jason_corcoran/status/1801217200642007286
That’s a shockingly terrible response by Russian propagandists seems they are in so much panic they haven’t thought through what messages like this would translate to Russian investors (or anyone foolish to have invested in Russia)
“So are they telling us the market should only be half of what it is?”
Imagine if the FED chairman or treasury secretary came out and said “everything is fine half our trade is with Europe, that’s a natural bottom right there to the market”
I fully expect @brickster69 to come along now and try to explain how this is the death of the euro dollar system 😂
so this is the kind of thing we want to see…
@zerosquared Comical Peskov ..
Russia's Central Bank spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that the bank can ensure market stability, despite the US sanctions against the Moscow Exchange (MOEX). The MOEX has announced a halt in US dollar and euro trading starting June 13. The bank has stated that foreign exchange business in these currencies will continue on the over-the-counter market. Peskov emphasized that the bank is a mega-regulator and is considering actions that best serve its interests. Moscow is considering response measures accordingly.
https://x.com/Fahadali682521/status/1801220273879802360
Im still just perplexed, puzzled and amazed it took this long to enact these, what appear to be, very visible and effective sanctions. This should have happened back in 2022 or 2023?
My 2 cents - i reckon many countries in the world INC US, UK, maybe EU did not want to see an early collapse of Russia Fed economy as they were not yet prepared for the possible blowback. Maybe now they are more insulated/divested and hence pulled the trigger.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/13/investing/us-russia-sanctions-dollar-euro-trading/
Except the bridge in Crimea is much much wider
Any day the Russian economy will collapse now.
The only reasoned opinion I have seen on this site that suggests an implosion of the Russian economy, does so based on Russia being unable to afford this war in the long run if the West keeps supporting Ukraine. Now, why does today's good news about the Russian economy seem to bother you so much?
Yes the sanctions aren't working! For Russia that is.
I suspect that post might not age well and when they are back to bartering with vodka bottles* we will still have posts saying “see tis nothing but a scratch”
**
look how happy they used to be on on payday before going back to secondary job in the prostitution industry to earn some “hard” currency
Make Russia Great again, again
That's not how sanctions work. They're aimed at smothering productive growth in the sanctioned nation. Russia's on a war footing and growth has pivoted to a war economy. That's far more immune to obvious sanction effects, but on the other hand isn't sustainable and doesn't have the wider trickle down of a general economy.
But let's imagine Russia wins, say takes the eastern part of Ukraine up to the Dnieper. OK, but that's when their troubles get worse. They'll inherit a wasteland covered in munitions(and corpses) with much of the infrastructure destroyed. Even if they suffer zero partisan action in the conquered territories(unlikely), the cost of clean up, never mind rebuilding will be truly astronomical. Costs that Russia would have struggled to pony up before the war and sanctions, damn near impossible now. And if they did win even more sanctions would be brought to bear.
If they lose they'd likely be hit with reparations, but good luck getting that out of them. But again their economy, an economy that peaked circa 2013, would still be screwed with far few customers overall. Never mind the tens of thousands dead and injured and returning troops with PTSD.
This is a lose/lose situation for Russia and it was the second Putin invaded and miscalculated the response.
Unfortunately it's unlikely to collapse as such. Even North Korea hasn't collapsed. Dictatorships can run on fumes for a long time.
The Russians are masters in circumventing sanctions and have turned heavily to China/India/etc, which has kept their economy ticking along and even some "relative progress", but in the long term they have had to sideline infrastructure projects to pay for a very expensive war, and on top of that foreign intermediaries and countries are getting more and more cautious about accepting business with them. It's a slow hurt.
Ukrainian hackers have hacked Russian TV and played Swan Lake with Happy Last Day of Russia across the screen.
They also showed all of Russia's military losses since the start of the war.
They will be aware of it by having to go to the black market for many things that they used to get via official channels up to now. And with the rise in the black market, the criminal classes will get even richer and more powerful. If you already considered Russia to be a mafia state, buckle up.
The Russian populace is VERY different to the NK populace. The geographical spread of Russia is VERY different to that of NK. And the socio-economic status of the two countries at the relevant points in time - now versus the 1950s/ 60s (bearing in mind the advance in technology and global communication platforms and comparative difficulty Putin would have in trying to brainwash and subjugate an entire population) is VERY different.
There's almost no point in trying to make a comparison.
Russia trying to act hard with the nuclear submarine off the US coast.
Has this prompted Biden to take proper action?
Leave them to it, their submarines have a tendency to sink like their ships
There’s a very deep ocean trench around them parts too
I'm sure their problems keeping the things safe and well maintained have abated in the time since the war started.
