Russia and economic war by the west #2

According to some estimates only 12% of western companies left Russia.
It was more or less a big show for the western public.

Those ones that left can stay out far as I'm concerned.

Nothing personal though. Just business.

I think you rob Germany of its agency and role in all this unfairly

It itself was this great supporter of the Ukraine, and of all EU expansion. The role of Merkel in covering for Kiev, supporting Sandu in Moldova, and the anti-Russian regime in Georgia of course. They humored the Russophobia of the Baltic states, while keeping Bulgaria's and Greece's Russophilia in line.
Germany benefited from all this. When applications were open to work as guest workers in Germany for Georgians; some 2-3% of the population filled in their application forms within the week, or what was it.
Germany was constantly pushing this neo-liberal line, lecturing Russia, and not to forget their very earnest attempts at installing Navalny into power just a couple of years ago, and the colour revolution attempt against Belarus. There was no disagreement with Washington about any of this.

Simply put the German elites desired to have their cake and eat it too. And now they have nothing. Neither the Ukraine nor Russia, nor even Belarus. Just an ever more demanding to themselves set of Poland + Baltic States
They got their share of fleeing 5th columners from Russia; they should be happy with that.

They even ended up sending their latest tanks to the Ukraine now, while all the other Washington yes-men suddenly got cold feet over it

No business as usual with them. They made their own bed.

Big politics and ideology always subordinates big business and so on

Because politics is the concentrated expression of the economy, as Lenin observed. There is nothing more profitable than world hegemony. And Western politicians will be willing to sacrifice a lot if it means keeping it.. as it's this which ensures their pole position and competitiveness of their various corporations and industries, more than anything.

As Russia grows, the United States can only steal what it can, by Javier Benítez for Sputnik Spanish. 02.08.2023.

Russia continues to grow in its commercial expansion. This is evidenced by several factors, among others, the signing of the Russian gas company Novatek with the Indian fertilizer company Deepak, of a memorandum for the supply of liquefied natural gas [LNG] and ammonia. Meanwhile, both countries are committed to completing the S-400 contract.

The world is much bigger than the West

Fair competition. It's what the US hasn't known for a long time what it is. And one of the most recent examples is that in order to win the European gas market from Russia, it had to provoke the conflict in Ukraine, which directly pits the Eurasian giant against NATO, that is, the United States itself.

In line with this, another recent example is that, the United States was so afraid that at some point Germany would think of resuming commercial relations with Russia and buying gas from it again through the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines, that 'it had no choice' but to dynamite and disable them: more than Moscow, it was a direct declaration of war on Berlin. But Germany, as a good country occupied by the United States since the end of the Second World War, that is, the Great Patriotic War, bows its head and swallows.

What Washington can teach is the most basic theft: it has historically enriched itself from the large-scale plundering of other countries, and the oil that it has long stolen from Syria - a country in the midst of a humanitarian crisis due to the earthquake suffered, and which remains sanctioned by that 'collective West' that spends it as an example of democracy, freedoms and other tales – is one of the last 'survivors' of this action by the North American country.

So pathetic is the situation that the USA is going through, that it is clutching like a stripped cable of any penny it can rake. To put it in a more graphic way, the American country has gone from being a white glove thief, to a simple street pickpocket or subway platform. Although some chances of a white glove thief are still remaining, but not for long.

And it is that the Russian Foreign Ministry called the US decision to transfer $5.4 million in confiscated assets of Russian businessman Konstantin Malofeyev to the State Department as "spoliation", to use these funds in aid to Ukraine. A decision announced on February 3 by the US Attorney general, Merrick Garland, who appeared before the press together with his Ukrainian counterpart, Andrei Kostin.

"The Joe Biden administration has committed a blatant politically motivated plunder with its decision to confiscate Konstantin Malofeyev's assets, frozen in an American bank, and transfer them to the pro-Nazi regime in Kiev," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. He added that most likely, Ukraine's budget will receive "crumbs", while the bulk of this sum will stay in the US and in the pockets of oligarchs close to the government in Kiev.

Major leagues

And while the USA is already definitely settled and playing in this 'neighborhood league', said with all due respect, Russia is playing in another league. The Russian gas company Novatek reported on Monday to have signed with the Indian fertilizer company Deepak a memorandum for the supply of liquefied natural gas [LNG] and ammonia.

In addition, the two intend to cooperate on long-term shipments of low-carbon hydrogen and ammonia "produced using technologies for capturing and storing carbon dioxide, cracking and renewable energy sources at Novatek's gas chemical complex," located on Russia's northern Yamal Peninsula in the Arctic Ocean.

As if that were not enough, both countries are committed to full compliance with the contract for the supply of the S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems, Russian Ambassador Denis Alipov said on Monday. "Both parties are committed to completing the contract in its entirety. We certainly will. Nothing will stop it," the ambassador said in a conference.

"Energy, specifically oil, gas, diluents, have been within a scenario of persecution, of sanctions war, of product brands: to make it seem that some are good and others are bad. Given this, the producing countries have carried out strategies. Russia has done it. And one of these tests of these practices, in this change of the energy world, is given in the proximity that can be made with great nations, such as China and like India itself," explains Miguel A. Jaimes, director of the International Diploma in Oil Geopolitics of Venezuela.
The analyst warns that, despite the sanctions, "Russia is moving forward and responding."

Yandex Translate from Spanish

https://sputniknews.lat/20230208/mientras-rusia-crece-a-eeuu-solo-le-queda-robar-lo-que-puede-1135503719.html

Western expert weighs in.
How valid arre these claims?

Who is this clown? You say he's an expert of some kind?

Russia's petrochemical facilities were only running thanks to Western tech and Western workers? Huh? Is he sure he's not mixing Russia up with Saudi Arabia?
The only Western specialists I know of were involved in the Sakhalin-2 LNG project and the BP-Rosneft joint-venture in Western Siberia.. and even there the heyday of their involvement was way before 2022. And those were new facilities, not old ones. The old ones never had and don't have now, any involvement of any Western multinationals. Neither did the new exclusively Russian projects naturally, like the ones they were building since 2014. They might have modernized the old refineries with some European, Japanese equipment, that's quite possible; but that's very far away from them being reliant on foreign workers and tech to keep them running.
Russia has no Bauxite and is only producing Aluminum thanks to Bauxite from Australia and Ireland? That's news to me, and to Russian industrialists I'm sure given that the country is the 8th largest Bauxite producer in the world.. nowhere near Australia's level, but it's respectable enough. The reserves near Arkhangelsk in fact are among the largest in Europe.
Russia targeting all sorts of economic infrastructure in the Ukraine with a focus on agricultural export infrastructure? How come that Grain deal is still running then? In fact agricultural goods is about all that the Ukrainian economy does export right now, and this only with Russia's acquiescence to it.
Western tech repaired the Russian pipeline network? Didn't realize it was ever broken to begin with.

The author of this video is attempting to disguise his true intention of conjuring up yet another annoying propaganda hit-piece about the Russian economy collapsing, by pretending to sound the alarm for the West instead. And yes Western economies are certainly in trouble due to all those shortages and broken contracts; but at the end of the day they can just repurchase them from the nations that do still buy them from Russia, for a mark-up naturally. So in reality this video is about nothing. The main thing the EU economies are in trouble over is gas; simply because of how much the price of it has risen and the knock-on effects for the profitability of their industries as a consequence. On that one he's correct, and on the Neon and Potash/fertilizer shortages in the world too, but it's hardly news.

I do very much hope that he isn't lying about having presented his findings to the CIA though.
The more circle-jerking and self-worship over Western superiority and Russia's coming doom they do, the better.

Thank you, FP, for listening to this piece of sh...  and debunking it. 

This "experts" are the reason for the troubles the west finds itself in today.
As Martyanov likes to say: GIGO.

@FP
Russia imports about 70% of needed bauxite ore. Half of it comes from Guinea, where RusAl has a big mine. Some of it from China. Australian exports are now blocked, where RusAl has a joint venture with Rio Tinto. For annual production of roughly 4 million tons about 4.5 times more bauxite is needed. Domestic production of bauxite covers about 30% of aluminium production. Russian aluminium production is basically RusAl production.

I always knew America did this terrorist act. Pretty stupid of them because it shows they consider Europe to be their vassals. Not like anyone who knew anything could think differently!
Biden's threat basically proved they would blow up NS2.

Hersh is a "blue chip" amongst journalists on certain things.
That fact he is releasing this suggests the game "may be up".

The only question is.... what game?

The Ukraine atrocity?
American subjugation of Europe?
The whole US/Dollar hegemony?

And what will Russia (and perhaps even Europe) do to administer justice?

And what will Russia (and perhaps even Europe) do to administer justice?

Reroute the gas/oil/coal/uranium supplies to China, India and the rest of Asia, let Europe deindustrialize itself.

Russia finds alternative to Siemens turbines, 02.09.2023.

Iranian-designed parts will replace German equipment in hydropower plants after sanctions halted operations last year.

Russia has begun producing Iranian-designed parts to replace Siemens turbines in its hydropower plants after sanctions impeded the servicing of German-made equipment last year.

MGT-70 gas turbine units are copies of Siemens hardware, developed by the Islamic Republic. The country attained a license for their assembly and localized production before a recent wave of anti-Iran sanctions took effect.

Currently, Russia can domestically produce small and medium turbines, but devices with a large capacity of between 100MW and 120MW were produced at a Siemens assembly plant in Russia.

The Iranian turbines could potentially replace equipment produced by the German industrial giant, which halted operations in Russia last year due to sanctions.

These measures have hit industry ties between Russia and its Western equipment suppliers. Last year, state energy giant Gazprom had to gradually reduce gas deliveries to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline due to technical problems related to servicing turbines.

Manufactured by Siemens, the turbines needed regular maintenance at the company’s plant in Montreal, Canada, where they became stranded due to Ottawa’s sanctions on Russia’s energy industry. After a request from Germany, which feared a shortage of gas if the pipeline were shut down, Canada exempted the turbines from restrictions. They were allowed to be sent to Germany with further delivery to Russia. However, Gazprom then refused to take them back without a legal guarantee that they could be repaired in future.

https://www.rt.com/business/571233-iran-russia-germany-gas-turbines/

Yeah, as I wrote before the Canadian Siemens turbines used in  nord Stream 1 are the former industrial Trent (energy gas turbine with a max power around 60 MW which
are an aeroderivative of the Rolls-Royce Trent 800 used on the Boeing 777-300).

The aeroderivative gas turbines are smaller and can go to max Power in a much shorter time compared to the heavy-duty energy gas turbines.

Both type are anyway needed.

The MGT-60 is a heavy duty gas turbine with about 160MW of power.

The most powerful Siemens heavy duty gas turbine has almost 600 MW of power.

Again Siemens had always good heavy duty gas turbines, but for obvious reasons never had aeroderivative gas turbines until about a decade ago. Then they just bought the energy sector of rolls-royce (which main site was in Montreal).

If I am not mistaken currently the most powerful heavy duty russian gas turbine is the Saturn GTD-110M (between 110 and 120 MW of power).

The most modern russian aeroderivative gas turbine should be a derivative of the PS-90 engine. It should be probably around 20 MW of power.


Looking forward to the energy derivative from the PD-35 engine.

https://www.railvolution.net/news/new-class-3te28-for-rzd

Another import substitution story. The 3TE28 diesel locomotive started out as the 3TE25K using GE diesel engines (GEVO V12 with 4216 hp). The purpose
is to service a non-electrified branch of the BAM. Thanks to the sanctions in 2022, a new engine was required. The replacement is the D300:

https://www.kolomnadiesel.com/en/catalog/diesels/section_detail.php?SECTION_ID=45

https://www.kolomnadiesel.com/catalog/detail.php?ID=1088

Specifically the V16 18-9DG with a base 3604 hp. The 18-9DGM has over 4000 hp and satisfies the requirement of 7100 ton hauling rating for the 3TE28.

EU loses 85% of frozen Russian assets


The total amount of assets of the Bank of Russia frozen by the EU countries is estimated at $258 billion, but most of them are not available to the EU political authorities imposing sanctions against Moscow. According to Bloomberg, accurate data are available only for $36.4 billion owned by Russia, the rest of the assets are listed as “lost”. The question of the fate of the Russian billions "stuck" in European banks has recently gained exceptional urgency, since Brussels intends to transfer these funds to the Kyiv regime "for the restoration of the country."

As the legal service of the EU rightly notes, in order to transfer Russian assets to Kyiv, they must first be found. She recommended that the EU summit with the participation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky oblige European banks to immediately transfer all information about the frozen funds of Russia to the European Commission.

In addition, EU lawyers called for "working with the G7 and the EU's international partners" to find the rest of the frozen Russian gold and foreign exchange reserves if Brussels was going to invest them to pay interest to Ukraine. It was this mechanism for using frozen Russian funds that the Brussels legal service recommended in order to circumvent the law on the impossibility of confiscation of someone else's (in this case, Russian) property. But the effectiveness of the plan will directly depend on how much of these funds will be found in the accounts of European commercial and central banks.

It is important to understand here that the reserves placed abroad are not buried in a Brussels field and not even a chest with banknotes hidden in some vault. These are funds kept on deposits and other accounts of foreign banks, as well as government debt securities.

It is noted that the laws of the European Union allow investing the frozen assets of Russia and using the proceeds to help the Zelensky regime, but first the EU authorities must establish the exact amount of assets owned by the Bank of Russia, as well as other blocked funds of Russian origin. We asked experts about how legal such actions on the part of the EU are and what their consequences may be for Russia.

Alexander Razuvaev, Member of the Supervisory Board of the Guild of Financial Analysts and Risk Managers:

“It is clear that the money that goes to Ukraine will never come back. In the initiative under discussion from EU lawyers, we are talking about liquid assets, that is, bonds and cash will fall into the field of expropriation. The bonds will be sold, the cash will be plundered! I think that if the EU moves from words to deeds, starts to seize our assets and transfer them to the Kiev regime, Russia will formally sue, but in parallel act in a similar way: the response from our country to the EU will be felt through the nationalization of European assets on the Moscow Exchange.

Garegin Mitin, Head of the Department of Sectoral Public Administration and Spatial Development, Synergy University:

“In order to talk about the breadth of the EU's application of confiscation practice, one must first understand its criteria. Theoretically, the Russian origin of the capital used to acquire the assets would in itself be a criterion for confiscation or nationalization. And then every Russian ruble abroad gets under attack. If we talk about the territorial application of confiscation measures, then in the European Union it is more difficult to introduce such measures because of the Convention on the Protection of Human Rights, which protects the right to property. It is impossible to take away Russian assets just like that - due to the violation of the balance of legality and legitimacy during confiscation: Western society may not accept it. In the meantime, one thing can be said: the West itself has begun to shake the foundations of the sacred right of private property for it.

Vadim Tkachenko, lawyer, head of the vvCube consulting group:

“The right to property in Europe, and indeed in all civilized countries, is unshakable. A departure from this rule is possible only if there is a court decision in relation to the offender, according to which he must reimburse the money.

With regard to states, there are no such precedents, except in individual cases of totalitarian states, when funds were used for the purpose of restoration or indemnity. There have been such precedents in the past, but no new mechanisms have emerged for this, so there are currently no legal grounds for withdrawing funds from the state (in this case, Russia).

Even the temporary withdrawal of funds, if there is no consent of the other party to use them free of charge, is illegal - this is a criminal or administratively punishable act. Moreover, it is not clear how these funds will be returned, because the conditions for the return should be spelled out in the relevant agreement. Thus, it is impossible in principle to refer to any norms, including international law.

As for the consequences, such actions will only further exacerbate the differences between countries. This will be an excuse for other states that have assets in Europe - primarily Asian and Latin American ones - to withdraw their property from there or somehow secure it. As a result, the European financial market has much more to lose than to gain.”

https://k--politika-ru.translate.goog/evrosoyuz-poteryal-85-zamorozhennyx-rossijskix-aktivov/?utm_source=finobzor.ru&_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en

Only two explanations:

1) The money has been kaifed by western interests and this story is BS cover.

2) Russia moved out its reserves parked in NATzO banks into other banks and assets.

The idea that they can't find the money is ludicrous. They know every freaking bank not serial number and every deposit is
tagged. The banking system would not function if there was a "lost" category. The only "lost" cases is where the ownership
of accounts is under contention. But this is not any sort of loss as every unit of money is accounted for.

I do not buy the idea that the CBR opened a bunch of numbered accounts through intermediaries and obscured the ownership.
Try to open an account at a bank with ambiguous identity. When you are dealing with billions they will do investigations on your
identity.

Top Indian refiners are using the UAE's currency instead of the US dollar to buy Russian crude

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/dollar-dominance-india-refiners-uae-dirham-russia-crude-oil-sanctions-2023-2

Only two explanations:

1) The money has been kaifed by western interests and this story is BS cover.

2) Russia moved out its reserves parked in NATzO banks into other banks and assets.

The idea that they can't find the money is ludicrous. They know every freaking bank not serial number and every deposit is
tagged. The banking system would not function if there was a "lost" category. The only "lost" cases is where the ownership
of accounts is under contention. But this is not any sort of loss as every unit of money is accounted for.

I do not buy the idea that the CBR opened a bunch of numbered accounts through intermediaries and obscured the ownership.
Try to open an account at a bank with ambiguous identity. When you are dealing with billions they will do investigations on your
identity.


A potential 3rd option is that the financial institutes are hiding it as they more then anyone else will suffer if it is seized.

@d_taddei and @franco

and what if UAE Dirham is not used by coincidence for Russo-Indian cooperation? what if CBR moved those reserves to UAE banks? Dubai or whatever else in Persian Gulf?

As long as Arabic merchants seell crude/gas and use Dubai as commercial hub their currency is quite convertible...