Russia and economic war by the west

mr_hd wrote:Russia under sanctions has not enough money to restore and rebuild area of Ukraine that captured so far - infrastructure and settlements there are badly damaged, Mariupol for example is totally destroyed, it would need billions to restore it.

Beside real sanctions are yet to come and start to bite. Unfortunately as chances that war can be stopped are slimmer and slimmer each day we will see more economical disruption in general.

Russia position as energy supplier to EU is dead basically and has not any future, now it is just a question will death come quickly (will hurt much more west then Russia but Russia will also bleed) or slow (will hurt much more Russia and less west but west will also seriously bleed).

And Russian economy will shrink this year for sure, but no one knows how much 5-10 or 15% all those scenarios are possible.

Let me just remind you that by the end of 2021, Russia's GDP amounted to 133 trillion rubles. In 2013, before the sanctions began, it was 73 trillion rubles. In 2019, before the pandemic, it was 104 trillion rubles.

lancelot wrote:"Money". To build houses. Yes I am sure Russia needs to import concrete, glass, and steel from Europe.
I just cannot understand the mind of you people sometimes.
As for the manpower and their "wages" there are a couple thousand of willing volunteers fresh out from ex-Ukraine Army and Azov stock who can be prodded to help.
They can pay them like the US pays its inmates. 10 rubles a day, and it is 30 rubles to make a phone call.

With NATO trying to head on destroy Russia and attack it Russia will make sure there is a good supply of glass, concrete and old scrap steel once Putin is done with them.

https://thesaker.is/the-schrodinger-euros/

The “print & deposit + freeze & hide” seizure trick explained in detail.

Irony of ironies: Those waging the sanctions-centered hybrid war against Russia have helped Moscow, during the two months of the war, to nearly double its revenues from selling fossil fuels largely to them. The EU alone imported 71% of the fossil fuels.

Those imposing sanctions are caught in a trap of their own making: By raising global energy and commodity prices, the sanctions translate into higher revenues for Moscow from decreasing exports. And by fueling inflation, the higher prices mean political trouble at home for them.

Meanwhile, Russia is doing its bit to raise oil and gas prices. After Russia moved to cut off supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, international LNG and crude prices began rising. Through broader counter-sanctions, it can raise prices further and yet manage to cushion its revenues.

The US will use its Navy to do piracy on the sea, just like they already did piracy in land, by stealing Russian money and property abroad.

I don't think they will to be honest because they are more vulnerable to the critical resources they need coming in by sea than Russia is.... either way Russia is going to have to massively build up its naval capacity... not to be world police, but to protect Russian interests anywhere they might be needed... so some 40K ton helicopter carriers and some new fixed wing aircraft carriers will be rather important moving forward... not for WWIII, but for ensuring no one can blockade Russia from her international trade partners in an attempt to get back to that lucrative sit on your arse and earn money middle man position the west loves so much.

They blocked Russia from using the three largest sea transport companies (in Europe or abroad), and they blocked Russian merchant ships from trade with their own ports. They will do the same thing they do to Venezuelan, Iranian, and North Korea ships, and start blocking and arresting Russian ships and ships with Russian cargo on the high seas. If they do this then Russia should respond. And the response should be asymmetric.

They can block their own ports and demand transport companies don't work with this or that country but why would Russia care about western port access... so all they actually need is their own commercial transport fleets to secure their own trade and the trade of allies and trade partners.

If they get their new corvettes and frigates into serial production it should not take too long before they can defend and operate and dominate their home waters... rocket propelled anti sub weapons, hypersonic anti ship missiles and an array of TOR and S-350 and Pantsir type missiles should be plenty for local waters linked in to local air defence networks and sea bed based sonar arrays.

This would free up the larger ships to operate further away from Russia, so the upgraded Udaloy and Sovremmeny and Orlan classes could get specific upgrades that allow them to have maximum endurance and performance away from Russian waters and their new satellite network should allow monitoring of international shipping to find hot spots and potential areas of conflict... but ultimately getting a destroyer design laid down should also be a priority because once they have those in serial production then things will be much better as they will likely be even better equipped than the Orlan with massive radar and sonar array sizes for excellent performance and heavy weapons types perhaps even including a 152mm or even 203mm gun with firing ranges of 200km or more.

How about that for a warning shot.

Irony of ironies: Those waging the sanctions-centered hybrid war against Russia have helped Moscow, during the two months of the war, to nearly double its revenues from selling fossil fuels largely to them. The EU alone imported 71% of the fossil fuels.

It is not accidental... it is engineered... the US sells gas to the Asian market because the prices in the asian market are much higher than in the European market.

That is not an accident... Russia has been supplying cheap gas to the EU who could buy expensive gas if they wanted to but they want cheap gas because it makes their industry more competitive. The low transfer costs and the fact that it gives them euros or US dollars meant Russia was happy in that arrangement... their costs for extracting and delivering gas are extremely low so even with the gas being cheap they make a good profit.

Enter the US who is pissed off at Russia getting all this western money, and the EU getting cheap energy making their production more competitive so the EU suddenly comes up with ideas like only using 50% pipe capacity so a competitor can use the pipe too, and dumping long term stable contracts for spot price auctions.... this was BS to try to boost the price by creating uncertainty... commodity prices hate uncertainty so it was always going to push the price up.

To be clear Russia does not want a high gas price because they sell greater volumes of gas when it is cheap because that makes it a relatively clean and efficient alternative to coal and other diesel fired power stations and the long term stability along with selling in large volumes because they have a lot to sell means good income from something cheap enough to use for heating and industry.

The US wants the price high so they can sell freedom gas which is more expensive because it has to be liquefied and shipped to europe and cut Russia out of that market which they think is theirs... they control the politicians, why not control the market too?

Their core problem moving forward is they don't produce enough gas for their own needs some years and often buy cheap Russian gas themselves, so how can they provide enough for the growing needs of the EU... the simple answer is they can't.

But they are driving up the price and cutting Russia out anyway.

The thing is that Russia can sell the gas to anyone... the Asian market would expand enormously if it could get gas at the prices the EU was paying, which means the loss of the EU as a customer is not going to hit Russia at all because what they sell to the EU they can easily sell to Asia... Japan and South Korea and China all have stakes in new pipelines for deliverin Russian gas... the west could bully Japan and SK, but China will want to replace their coal power generation units with gas just to be greener internationally...

Those imposing sanctions are caught in a trap of their own making

Against a small country that is easy to isolate sanctions can be crippling... ask Iran or Cuba or North Korea.... but against Russia or China... or even India it just forces them to look for alternatives and become more independent of the west... making the west weaker and less able to influence... which is counter productive.

They don't do it because they are smart, they do it because they are desperate...

The core point is that if the EU had individual 10-15 years locked in contracts the spot price would not matter at all and they would be getting cheap gas guaranteed.

The only time Russia has ever cut gas supplies was because it was unable to because Kiev blocked the pipes or because it was not paid for.

All this bleating about Russia restricting gas supplies this last year or so was Russia supplying the ordered gas that was paid for but not extra gas to top up storage sites in Europe... instead they topped up their own storage sites and made sure they had enough gas for their own needs.

Even with their cheap gas the EU are terrible customers... and their claims that China screwed them over gas prices are amusing because they are good customers who don't pull half the shit the EU does with its rules and regulations that require new pipes to be built in the first place.

The Bank of Russia has reduced the key rate from 17% to 14% per annum. The decision was made following a meeting of the Board of Directors on Friday, April 29.

"The external conditions for the Russian economy remain difficult and significantly limit economic activity. The risks to price and financial stability have ceased to increase, which created conditions for lowering the key rate. The latest weekly data indicate a slowdown in the current rate of price growth due to the strengthening of the ruble and the cooling of consumer activity," the regulator's website reports.
https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5330226

Scorpius wrote:The Bank of Russia has reduced the key rate from 17% to 14% per annum. The decision was made following a meeting of the Board of Directors on Friday, April 29.

"The external conditions for the Russian economy remain difficult and significantly limit economic activity. The risks to price and financial stability have ceased to increase, which created conditions for lowering the key rate. The latest weekly data indicate a slowdown in the current rate of price growth due to the strengthening of the ruble and the cooling of consumer activity," the regulator's website reports.
https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5330226

The pacing of the drops is rapid. I thought the high rate would persist for several months. At this rate of attenuation we are looking
at under 10% early in the summer.

Considering Nabiullina's fixation on inflation (real and imagined) these rate drops indicate that there is little inflationary pressure in Russia.
The important aspect is that it is not just about the ruble forex rate. It is the supply chain disruptions that are not as severe as one would have
expected.

kvs wrote:

Scorpius wrote:The Bank of Russia has reduced the key rate from 17% to 14% per annum. The decision was made following a meeting of the Board of Directors on Friday, April 29.

"The external conditions for the Russian economy remain difficult and significantly limit economic activity. The risks to price and financial stability have ceased to increase, which created conditions for lowering the key rate. The latest weekly data indicate a slowdown in the current rate of price growth due to the strengthening of the ruble and the cooling of consumer activity," the regulator's website reports.
https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5330226

The pacing of the drops is rapid.  I thought the high rate would persist for several months.   At this rate of attenuation we are looking
at under 10% early in the summer.  

Considering Nabiullina's fixation on inflation (real and imagined) these rate drops indicate that there is little inflationary pressure in Russia.
The important aspect is that it is not just about the ruble forex rate.   It is the supply chain disruptions that are not as severe as one would have
expected.

Biggest battleground for inflation in Russia are, usually, food prices. It looks like harvest will be good, maybe, even a record setting one. That will be of big help against inflation.

I have to disagree. Producer prices are extremely important for general inflation in the economy. A 20% move in food prices translates
into a 3-4% CPI change. Serious disruption in the production chain can easily overwhelm this. There is also no 20% surge in food prices.
If there is somewhere, then it is simple gouging and criminal cases need to be launched.

The CBR would not be raising the prime rate to 20% for any food price change in Russia. Reductions in sunflower oil supply are a joke.
The people in Germany and Turkey panicking over this are clowns. Russia has no substantial food import dependence aside from tropical
fruit. Even the beef imports are overwhelmingly from Belarus.

lancelot wrote:The US will use its Navy to do piracy on the sea, just like they already did piracy in land, by stealing Russian money and property abroad.
They blocked Russia from using the three largest sea transport companies (in Europe or abroad), and they blocked Russian merchant ships from trade with their own ports. They will do the same thing they do to Venezuelan, Iranian, and North Korea ships, and start blocking and arresting Russian ships and ships with Russian cargo on the high seas. If they do this then Russia should respond. And the response should be asymmetric.

They think because they have more nuclear attack submarines and destroyers they are safe with this posture. Dangerous times I think.

Venezuela and Iran do not have Tsirkon...

With easy visas, Biden seeks to lure Russia’s top scientists to US.

https://www.bloombergquint.com/politics/biden-seeks-to-rob-putin-of-his-top-scientists-with-visa-lure

Sujoy wrote:With easy visas, Biden seeks to lure Russia’s top scientists to US.

https://www.bloombergquint.com/politics/biden-seeks-to-rob-putin-of-his-top-scientists-with-visa-lure

With the current anti Russian hysteria mixed in with laws of stripping Russians rights of ownership and what not, this plan will fall flat as it has done for decades now.

It's a trope being used and I believe Sujoy you posted about this year's ago where I did question it then as well.

It's a repeate that continues to fail on grand scale.  To the point Russians are returning to Russia. That is an achievement if I ever saw one of America's very poorly thought out and contradicting policies...

ALAMO wrote:Murrican arrogance stands out of a line, even if compared to the other ze Wezt.
Come to us, dear rocket industry well-paid specialist, our local ukronazis who are here since 50's will beat you, bully your kids at school, and throw you out of a store for speaking your native language. What can be better than that?!

Silicon Valley is dependent on Russian specialists. Number of Russians live in the U.S. My CEO when I was in the U.S was a Russian migrant (a Maths genius).

Even if Americans are able to get hold of Ukrainian scientists, engineers they will still benefit just like they benefited from the import of scientists, engineers from Nazi Germany aster the end of WW-II

The Rise and Rise of the Sino-Russian Strategic Energy & Metals Market

Declan Hayes
April 28, 2022

American hegemony is at an end and multi-polarity, with Russian-Chinese relations at their helm, is here to stay for a long, long time, Declan Hayes writes.

The emerging Sino-Russian strategic energy and metals’ market will be an unparalleled success, thanks in large part to Irish (sic) Joe Biden, who has committed strategic blunders that even outdo those of Hitler and Napoleon’s Grande Armée, which destroyed itself in Russia because Tsar Alexander refused his orders to blockade Britain.

Though Hitler was slave to many demons, chief amongst them was the economic policies of the weaselly Hjalmar Schacht, who was the first to turn Queen’s Evidence at Nuremberg. Schaft’s economic policies delivered Germany from the frying pan of the Great Depression into the inferno of Hitler, Stalingrad, Kursk and destruction. By following Schaft’s policies, the Third Reich could end no other way than in destruction. This was because the Reich’s survival depended on enmeshing itself in more and more conquests, in a process Steinbeck’s The Moon is Down described as a fly catching more and more flypaper.

Though Russia’s boundless resources present NATO’s flies with limitless flypaper, the USA cannot physically occupy it. And nor, despite its best efforts, can it financially strangle or otherwise emasculate it.

This is because Russia has a vast reserve of strategic natural resources, a nuclear armed army to protect them and powerful allies, China in particular, to defy Empire. Russia is awash with aluminum, copper, fertilizer, neon, nickel, palladium, petroleum, soybeans, titanium, wheat, and a large variety of other commodities too numerous to adumbrate but, when combined, add up to an impressive trading portfolio that no longer needs London based intermediaries to off load them.

Preliminaries

An important benchmark for pricing these commodities is their spot price in Rotterdam, Houston, Singapore, New York or some similarly well established hub. This price is contractually set by the clearing house and that contract specifies barge, cargo ship, pipeline or some other mode of delivery. Independent price assessors help establish the spot price and the forward, futures and options prices all ebb and flow as derivatives from that spot price. Russia, China and their allies are replicating all that and more.

Large and liquid markets, such as those which pertain in London, Chicago, New York or similar financial hubs have market makers and underwriters to ensure the markets work round the clock and are insulated against shocks, such as the 9/11 attacks or the 1979 Afghan and Iranian upheavals. Russia and China are sufficiently deep pocketed to provide that protection and to provide naval protection through the Black Sea, the Sea of Japan or the Malacca Strait, should that be warranted to guard against British, American or allied piracy.

As China is running monthly trade surpluses of hundreds of billions of dollars and her foreign exchange reserves are in the trillion of dollars, under-writing markets in these valuable and liquid commodities’ markets is not an issue; NATO’s daydreams notwithstanding, these resources will not end up rotting in Russian fields or barns.

As China and Russia are very major trading partners with one another and even have thriving currency swap facilities with one another, there is, with Western sanctions, the imperative to increase this trade and expand on those swap markets. The Central Banks of Russia and China, as long ago as 2014, signalled their intentions to do just that by signing a 150 billion yuan central bank liquidity swap line agreement to counter American sanctions.

Despite NATO’s wishes to the contrary, Russia is just too important militarily, economically and financially for China to betray their common destiny. These swap and other derivative markets will continue to grow in size and in complexity with or without the involvement of the Anglo-Americans and their NATO satellite powers. Russian, Chinese and affiliated regulators can specify in their contracts a place of delivery, much as the American markets do for potatoes, pigs’ bellies, orange juice, Colombian coffee and a galactic range of other products. Crucially, however, the Russo-Chinese exchange would follow the old KISS principle of keeping it simple, stupid.

That would mean many of these products would be handled by government-regulated market makers in Russian ports like Primorsk, Nakhodka, Novorossiysk, Ust-Luga, Murmansk, Sokol Sakhalin and Varandey which, between them, handle the bulk of Russia’s vast gas and petroleum exports. Approved Indian, Pakistani and Chinese partners could collect the goods in any of those ports or arrange, through approved operators, for delivery outside of Russia. Rosneft, Lukoil, Surgutneftegas, Gazprom, Tatneft and similar prominent Russian firms would, of course, be central to all of this.

There is nothing new or particularly Sino-Russian in any of this. Saudi Aramco has a very sophisticated system in place to manage its entire oil supply and apartheid-era South Africa had something similar with respect to its vast gold stocks. With such unimaginable wealth at stake and with so much talent available in the BRIC countries, putting the nuts and bolts of all of this together and expanding it globally is entirely feasible.

If we assume, for illustrative purposes, that Vladisvostok was Russia’s exit port and Shanghai China’s entry port, then we would have spot prices in both ports connected by a cost of carry, by an interest rate in other words, much as we currently have with gold derivatives and U.S. government rates, and London Inter Bank Offer Rates (LIBOR) and almost all other global interest rates.

Depending on the political temperature in Russia, the cost of carry rate could be higher than, lower than, equal to or totally independent of LIBOR. Although establishing such a Chinese oriented benchmark would put unprecedented pressure on the City of London, the British, being resilient, would relish the chance to rise to the occasion, and bully for them.

And they will get such a chance as the Shanghai Interbank Offer Rate (SIBOR) follows the Tokyo (TIBOR) rate and largely goes its own way, even eventually replacing LIBOR as the world’s main benchmark rate; that process is already being accelerated by China giving preferential long term loans to its strategic trading partners and even offering to finance the Sakhalin and similar areas with Japan, should Tokyo so wish. With China doling out long term strategic loans, albeit in much higher volumes than Japan once did, this added Russo-Chinese pressure on Tokyo will show that the Japanese remain as resiliently stubborn as ever, even as their American overseers dissipate Japan’s markets in front of them.

Given just how starved the EU, Japan and Britain will be of resources, they could have a mini-Olympics between themselves and the USA to determine which of them is the most resilient. However, as the emerging system will force them to divest themselves of their gold reserves should they wish to buy Russian resources, the medals might best be made of plastic, if they can get the necessary amounts to mint them and the vacuous Hollywood stars to present them.

Price Discovery

Back in the real world, because achieving depth and liquidity in these emerging Russo-Chinese markets is critical to their success, proper pricing would be essential. Oil exemplifies several ways how this can be done. Let’s say the spot Amsterdam price is U.S.$100 a barrel and the Saudis need a $70 barrel price to take care of their needs. We then have a range of $70 to $100 to begin our price discovery, ex Vladisvostok, let’s say.

If the overseers decide $100 (or $60) is an appropriate price, then that amount is paid in a weighted average of Chinese yuan, Russian rubles, and Indian and Pakistani rupees, out of which is deducted the cost of Chinese, Indian and Pakistani imports, with approved agents from those countries able to trade in shadow Russian rubles to settle accounts between themselves.

This qualitatively differs from the Iraqi and Syrian markets, which have had their collateral stolen by brazen acts of Anglo-American piracy and brigandage. China, as already explained, has enough cash on hand to grease the wheels of business for centuries to come.

Once these basic markets click into gear, advanced forward markets would be easily established thereafter. Thus, in our example, if the spot price ex Vladivostok is $100 a barrel and the 30 day cost of carry is 10% (to simplify the math), then, under stable conditions, the 30 day forward price is $110, and the 60 day forward price is 110×1.1= $121 and so on.

Because settlement day suffers the turbulence of the witching hour in the American and British markets, one would have to expect similar hiccups in this proposed model. However, there is one key, fundamental difference. The Anglo-American markets are heavily, deliberately and insanely exposed to speculators to deepen and widen their markets; this one is not.

The primary and over-riding objective of this market, which is now forming before our eyes, is to give to all the peoples of Russia, China and the Indian sub-Continent the building blocks to secure themselves and others a viable future, free from the piracy of the Royal Navy and the predatory and pick-pocketing instincts of The London Metal Exchange, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and all allied with or subservient to them.

The Anglo Americans rightly pride themselves on their accounting and settlement processes, which they inherited from their Dutch teachers following the 1674 Treaty of Westminster. And they are right to point to systematic managerial deficiencies during the Soviet era. However, not only have those ships long ago sailed but China’s legions of accountants, with their high tech abacuses, have made them all as redundant as the Pharaoh and his scribes. Russia, China, Pakistan and India will outshine London, just as surely as night follows day.

Though the illiquidity of gold and of the yuan have been cited as stumbling blocks, because Chinese and Russian brokers, working in tandem from Shanghai and Vladivostok, would settle and clear accounts in accepted, non-hostile currencies, they are not deal breakers. Business will not only continue but the current stabilisation of the ruble and the (over-inflated) oil price show that to be the case. Irish (sic) Joe Biden jumped the gun and Russia, China, India and Pakistan are laughing at him.

A Tale of Two Currencies

None of this is opinion but plain market fact. Although NATO’s journalists tell us that Ukraine is winning the war, the markets say otherwise. As the Ukrainian hryvnia has more than halved in value since the 2014 fascist putsch, with its attendant neoliberal “reforms” that have devastated living standards and have caused the country to be labelled second poorest in Europe, after Moldova (where Irish military intelligence are actively making things worse), the ₴ has defied gravity (and its own name) by stabilizing, from its original 1996 rate of 1.76 to the dollar, at around 30 to the dollar, before and, crucially, during the current conflict.

The hryvnia’s war-time performance is quite incredible as, unlike the Bosnian marka and the Bulgarian lev, the hryvnia has been a free floating currency for a number of years. Its current resilience is, on the surface, remarkable against a background of war, death and destruction, the occupation of large parts of Ukraine by Russia’s peace-keeping forces, the capital city under siege, the flight of over four million people eager to divest themselves of their illiquid and, presumably, near-worthless currency, together with the oligarchs’ Pavlovian flight of capital in response to turmoil.

The only explanation for the hryvnia’s survival is that it is being artificially and most likely illegally kept on life support by Ukraine’s sleazy oligarchs and the foreign power blocks they collude with. There is no other way it could be defying gravity.

The Russian ruble, in contrast, fell from about 65 to 150 to the euro, following a series of unprecedented attacks on it and on everything Russian in an effort to get Russian society to implode. However, as the ruble has rebounded without the artificial and presumably illegal help Ukraine is receiving, the long term prognosis has to be bullish on Russia. The tribulations of both of these currencies will not have gone unnoticed in London or, more importantly, in Beijing.

Threats

Although the Royal Navy was founded by actual pirates and the British, with their American allies, have been reverting to their base instincts by hijacking Iranian oil tankers, taking on the combined nuclear armed navies of Russia, China, Pakistan and India would test even Britannia’s far-famed mettle.

Although not even the British, the Americans or their European vassals would, we hope, be crazy enough to have a High Noon nuclear shoot out, one would have to expect some form of further retaliation before Perfidious Albion finally capitulates, returns all the assets it has stolen and pays due reparations to all its colonial and neo-colonial vassals out of its deleted purse.

One possible trick would be to try to corner thin markets in strategic metals, much as how the Hunt brothers’ Silver Thursday market price collapse played out. However, with the Russian, Chinese and allied regulatory authorities keeping a very watchful eye on the play, any such attempted squeeze would fail. Further, as Russia’s exports are so much in demand and, as Anglo-American Russophobia has shredded their contract law far beyond redemption, Perfidious Albion has no hope of getting any of those Sino-Russian markets in a death grip. Their race is run.

Anglo American Piracy

Because the Anglo American theft of Russia’s reserves suggests there is no honor among today’s thieves, we can expect confidence in the spendthrift Anglo American caste system to find significant resistance even in its German, Japanese and other vassal states; Canada does not count as it is a micro economy, which was included in G7 only to give the USA extra leverage.

The ruble’s robustness has shown that the theft of these assets has not undermined Russia’s domestic economy and Russia’s ongoing peace keeping operations in Armenia, Syria and Ukraine, coupled with the economic stances of China, India and Pakistan, show that America’s days as bully boy of the world are ending.

Anglo-American bullhorn diplomacy is just the proverbial dead cat’s bounce, the last hurrah of a bullying, spendthrift culture that believed there would never be a day of reckoning. Hitler’s constituents thought the same until the order went out that donations of winter woolies were needed to deal with some inclement weather in Russia. Though today’s Germans are also being told to darn their socks and don their winter woolies, Germany 2022 is not yet as dire as Germany 1942.

Germany needs Russia’s gas and the world’s 600 LNG carriers, whose average capacity is 140,000 cubed meters of gas, cannot save them as the maximum they could deliver is just north of 1,00,000,000 cubic meters a year. As Russia delivers 150 billion cubic meters annually and, as the 600 LNG carriers are already contractually bound, Germans face the same cold prospects their grand parents faced as Hitler’s Reich collapsed around them.

If the Germans want to take a break from reading about the Reich’s implosion, they might profitably examine Germany’s own Metallgesellschaft hedging debacle or the Burmah Oil fiasco, both of which yours truly wrote about years ago. Burmah Oil, which began life robbing Iranian oil for the Royal Navy, came a cropper as the world economy tanked by leasing oil tankers from Greek and Chinese brokers, who obviously knew much more than them about that specialized business.

We are now experiencing a similar global reshuffle. The Bretton Woods system, which the USA imposed on a devastated Europe against Lord Keynes’ informed but enfeebled protests, is dying by the same doomed strategies of arrogant over reach into Russia that destroyed both Hitler and Napoleon. Although there can be no certainty what the economic future will hold, American hegemony is at an end and multi-polarity, with Russian-Chinese relations at their helm, is here to stay for a long, long time.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2022/04/28/the-rise-and-rise-of-the-sino-russian-strategic-energy-metals-market/

ALAMO wrote:Sleepy Joe's offer is something mentally stuck to the reality that is fading away for the last 20+ years.

But U.S census figures suggest the Russian population in the U.S is increasing along with those people who migrated from India, China, Mexico and several other countries.

In my experience Russians are sough after in high end jobs.

Sujoy wrote:But U.S census figures suggest the Russian population in the U.S is increasing along with those people who migrated from India, China, Mexico and several other countries.

In my experience Russians are sough after in high end jobs.

In 2...5 years there should not have that many high end jobs in the west for them. Yet we need to see the figures after the Ukraine operation and the whole hysterical anti-Russian western thing.

There has been some loss of much-desired programmer and data analysis workers after February 24. But I expect this
to be a transient and US luring is not going to drive a brain drain. All the liberasts have run off already. The demand
for high end skilled workers in Russia is robust. There is no mass unemployment shock.

Huge rise in Russian gas supplies to China – Gazprom

source

Russian gas supplies to China have shot up by almost 60% in the first four months of 2022 compared to the same period last year, Russian energy giant Gazprom announced on Sunday.

The deliveries are made through the Power of Siberia pipeline as part of the contract between Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the company said.

When Russia launched its military operation against Ukraine in late February, Beijing refused to condemn Moscow or take part in the international sanctions, despite threats from Washington.

The energy standoff between Russia and the West has led to gas supplies to countries outside the former Soviet Union dropping by 26.9% since the start of the year. A total of 50.1 billion cubic meters have been delivered over the past four months.

The collective West can go and foxtrot themselves.  The world is changing, and those fckers don't get to rule the planet