RussiaGate #Digest

2022-05-10 17:58:25 About 30 minutes ago the Finnish parliament's defense committee recommended NATO membership.

We assume that Finland will apply as soon as next week.

The Baltic Sea is becoming NATO's lake thanks to Vladimir Putin. Open / Comment

2022-05-10 13:52:11 Bloomberg reported about the worst contraction of Russian economy since 1994. According to Bloomberg's sources in Russian Finance Ministry, the fall will be up to 12%.

The Ministry has already denied these claims, but it actually doesn't change anything.

Bank of Russia, for example, forecast an economic contraction of 9.2% this year.

We could argue about the numbers, but, as a matter of fact, in one day Kremlin nullified everything Russian economy has gained in 20 years.

Sanctions aren't a blitzkrieg. Open / Comment

2022-05-09 20:30:22 Moscow-backed President of South Ossetia Bibilov lost the elections to the opposition candidate.

It's noteworthy to say, that neither of the Moscow-backed Presidents of South Ossetia managed to win a second consecutive term.

This surely speaks for a relatively healthy political culture in the tiny republic where people actually can change their leaders democratically.

Bibilov was backed personally by Andrei Turchak, Dmitry Sablin and people in FSB's 5 Service. They all failed. Open / Comment

2022-05-07 18:50:07 Bloomberg reports about Gazprom's letter to its European clients reassuring them that they can pay for Russian gas without breaching the sanctions.

Foreign currency received from buyers can be exchanged to rubles via accounts with Russia’s National Clearing Center.

It's not that important what the scheme will be. As we have pointed out, nobody is going to pay for Russian gas in rubles.

Second, Russia is trying its best to keep the gas flowing to Europe. Open / Comment

2022-05-04 19:31:19 Russians have invested more than $3bln in Dubai real estate, according to the EU Tax observatory. There is another interesting tendency though.

In the most exclusive neighborhoods the fraction of offshore real estate owned by Russians rises to 6%, as opposed to about 3% for Dubai real estate overall.

We are almost sure that in a year this fraction will rise even more. Open / Comment

2022-05-04 16:56:18 India is negotiating deeper discounts on Russian crude oil which has become a toxic commodity since February, 24. Actually Delhi wants to pay less than $70 per barrel. Brent is $108 at the time.

Western sanctions has made Russian oil exports very problematic, and India is making the most of Russian difficulties. Delhi has been very opportunistic, buying over 40mln barrels of Russian crude since February, 24.

Russia has heavily discounted its oil and has no choice but to sell it in order to support its military efforts in Ukraine. Open / Comment

2022-05-03 17:38:38 Military spending in the world in 2021, according to SIPRI data. US military spending amounted to $801bln which is 38% of all expenditures in the world.

American military research and development funding has been $107bln last year and is constantly increasing which indicates the focus on the next-gen technologies. Open / Comment

2022-05-03 15:19:31 Charles Michel, Head of European Council, met Greek Prime Minister and the leaders of Bulgaria, North Macedonia and non-NATO member Serbia at the Greek port of Alexandroupolis.

Balkan leaders will discuss an LNG project to rival Russian pipelines.

Doing business with modern Russia is not only toxic, but also expensive. The partner is too unstable. Open / Comment

2022-05-03 14:58:40 For some reason Russia continues to escalate its tensions with Israel over clearly antisemitic comments of Sergei Lavrov over 'Jewish blood' of Adolf Hitler.

Not only Moscow hasn't apologized, instead Russian MFA accused Israel of supporting 'neo-nazi' regime in Ukraine.

We are witnessing Russian mental, cultural and intellectual collapse of unheard proportions which is accompanied with traditional Russian everyday antisemitism. Late Stalin style.

A good training case for future though, we will follow closely. Open / Comment

2022-05-02 19:05:48 Based on public records, reporting by Russian media outlets and yacht valuations provided by VesselsValue, Forbes estimates Sechin is worth at least $800 million. Open / Comment