Russia

[LFC]

The U.S. and a number of other nations are cutting off technology exports to Russia.

In response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the US and allies are imposing sanctions that "will cut off more than half of Russia's high-tech imports, restricting Russia's access to vital technological inputs, atrophying its industrial base, and undercutting Russia's strategic ambitions to exert influence on the world stage," the White House said on Thursday. The sanctions are a "response to Putin's war of choice against Ukraine" and "impose severe costs on Russia's largest financial institutions," the White House said.

For exports to Russia, "US companies must now obtain licenses to sell computers, sensors, lasers, navigation tools, and telecommunications, aerospace, and marine equipment. The United States will deny almost all requests," a Reuters article explained. "The new rules also force companies making tech products overseas with US tools to seek a US license before shipping to Russia," Reuters wrote, noting that similar restrictions were previously applied to Chinese tech giant Huawei.

According to the White House announcement, "countries that adopt substantially similar export restrictions are exempted from new US licensing requirements for items produced in their countries." The European Union, Australia, Japan, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom are imposing similar sanctions.

[pnwguy]

Feb 28, 2022 22:17:34 GMT LFC said:

The U.S. and a number of other nations are cutting off technology exports to Russia.

It's a good thing we got SpaceX to handle trips to the ISS now.

[AnBr]

Mar 1, 2022 4:05:08 GMT pnwguy said:

Feb 28, 2022 22:17:34 GMT LFC said:

The U.S. and a number of other nations are cutting off technology exports to Russia.

It's a good thing we got SpaceX to handle trips to the ISS now.

Which will be deorbited soon, anyway.

[LFC]

[LFC]

Looks like Russia is now experiencing bank runs. That's never good.

Queues of people snaked through Moscow shopping malls on Tuesday as the scramble for hard currency continued, and Russians faced increasing isolation as sanctions made travel harder and sports teams were ejected from major competitions.

Western sanctions over Russia's invasion of Ukraine threaten to decimate the economy, and have already sent the rouble plunging to record lows this week before a partial recovery.

Wearing a light blue winter coat, Olga has spent the last two days searching for an ATM where she might be able to withdraw some of her savings in foreign currency.

Some Moscow residents waited for hours, only to find that automatic tellers were empty or carried just roubles.

One of the queues, reminiscent of Soviet times when people waited in line for hours to purchase staple foods, extended around the corner from the Tsvetnoy shopping mall.

"I haven't managed to withdraw any euros yet," Olga said as she waited in line to use the ATM. "I'm concerned. I somehow need to get cash."

[LFC]

Russia's stock market remains shut down.

Russia's equity markets remained suspended and some bond trading platforms were no longer showing prices, but dealing in the major financial centres both in Europe and in Asia overnight was orderly, albeit jittery.

[LFC]

Bitcoin trading is up in Russia, and Ukraine.

The embargoes slammed Russia’s economy and, especially, the country’s national currency. The ruble lost around 25% of its value in a matter of 24 hours.

Contrary to the fiat currency, the cryptocurrency market data provider – Kaiko – revealed that bitcoin is gaining traction in the region after the sanctions. BTC trading volumes against the ruble reached the highest level since May 2021, while those using the Ukrainian hryvnia topped the October peak. Speaking on the matter was Clara Medalie – Head of Kaiko research:

“The trend follows a wave of sanctions against Russia, which has disrupted forex markets and caused the ruble to sink to records law against the dollar.”

Medalie noted that bitcoin’s overall trading volume also soared during the last seven days. She added that the increased activity for BTC/UAH and BTC/RUB trading pairs was “magnitudes greater” than the BTC/USD one.

Experts believe that the financial uncertainty in the region will cause Russians to potentially convert their money into digital assets. On that note, Ukraine’s Vice PM urged crypto exchanges to freeze addresses of Russian-based users.

[LFC]

#thequietpartoutloud

Russian state news accidentally publishes article saying Russia has defeated Ukraine and restored its 'historical borders'

• RIA Novosti, a Russian state-run news outlet, published an article saying Ukraine lost to Russia.

• "Ukraine has returned to Russia," said the article, which has since been removed.

• Ukraine and Russia are still in conflict.

A Russian state-run news agency prematurely published an article that said Russia has taken back Ukraine.

"Ukraine has returned to Russia," said the article, which ran on RIA Novosti and has since been taken down. "The West sees the return of Russia to its historical borders in Europe."

The article praised the "return" of Ukraine to it's "natural state" as part of Russia.

"The period of the split of the Russian people is coming to an end," the article reads. "Did someone in the old European capitals, in Paris and Berlin, seriously believe that Moscow would give up Kiev? That the Russians will forever be a divided people?"

Putin wants his legacy to be the man who restored the Soviet Union.

[goldenvalley]

Mar 1, 2022 17:39:29 GMT LFC said:

#thequietpartoutloud

Russian state news accidentally publishes article saying Russia has defeated Ukraine and restored its 'historical borders'

• RIA Novosti, a Russian state-run news outlet, published an article saying Ukraine lost to Russia.

• "Ukraine has returned to Russia," said the article, which has since been removed.

• Ukraine and Russia are still in conflict.

A Russian state-run news agency prematurely published an article that said Russia has taken back Ukraine.

"Ukraine has returned to Russia," said the article, which ran on RIA Novosti and has since been taken down. "The West sees the return of Russia to its historical borders in Europe."

The article praised the "return" of Ukraine to it's "natural state" as part of Russia.

"The period of the split of the Russian people is coming to an end," the article reads. "Did someone in the old European capitals, in Paris and Berlin, seriously believe that Moscow would give up Kiev? That the Russians will forever be a divided people?"

Putin wants his legacy to be the man who restored the Soviet Union.

I think he's going further back than the Soviet Union.  People have noted he refers to St. Vladimir (coincidence, no?) who is credited with Christianizing and consolidating the Rus realm, including Belaruss, Ukraine, and Russia.  

And speaking of religion and/or religious adjacent things:

Ukraine's president has aired his frustration on Twitter over the missile strike on the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Centre in Kyiv.

It is built on Europe's largest mass grave of the Holocaust, where Nazi death squads killed more than 33,000 Jewish people in the space of just two days in 1941.

I understand President Zelensky is Jewish.

[indy]

Russian natural-gas giant Gazprom, oil-producer Lukoil and leading bank Sberbank are all penny stocks based on their trading on the London Stock Exchange, as the local market was shut for a third day.

Sberbank SBER, -87.10%, which had assets of over $500 billion at the end of 2021, was trading for 3 cents a share in afternoon action. The European Commission on Wednesday approved the resolution plan for its Croatian and Slovenian arms that will be sold. Its Austrian and Czech operations will be wound down, with depositors compensated up to €100,000.

Lukoil LKOD, -96.10%, Gazprom OGZD, -86.84%, and Rosneft Oil ROSN, -62.74% continued to collapse as the dollar-denominated secondary listings in London remained the one venue where Russia’s top companies could be valued.

www.marketwatch.com/story/gazprom-lukoil-and-sberbank-are-now-penny-stocks-as-russian-companies-collapse-in-london-11646227312?mod=bnbh_mwarticle

[LFC]

Putin understands the power of religion and, just like the Catholic Church with Hitler, the Russian Orthodox Church is falling right in line.

A curious new church was dedicated on the outskirts of Moscow in June 2020: The Main Church of the Russian Armed Forces. The massive, khaki-colored cathedral in a military theme park celebrates Russian might. It was originally planned to open on the 75th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany, in May 2020, but was delayed due to the pandemic.

Conceived by the Russian defense minister after the country’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, the cathedral embodies the powerful ideology espoused by President Vladimir Putin, with strong support from the Russian Orthodox Church.

The Kremlin’s vision of Russia connects the state, military and the Russian Orthodox Church. As a scholar of nationalism, I see this militant religious nationalism as one of the key elements in Putin’s motivation for the invasion of Ukraine, my native country. It also goes a long way in explaining Moscow’s behavior toward the collective “West” and the post-Cold War world order.

Too many religious groups yearn for the "good old days" when they wielded both physical and political power, and when they could punish their enemies (i.e. people who didn't believe their particular mythology) with righteousness and impunity.

[LFC]

Interesting take on the China - Russia relationship.

Yesterday, as you no doubt saw, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to denounce Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 141 countries voted for the resolution. The 5 who voted against it were an unsurprising list: Russia, two countries Russia essentially owns (Belarus and Syria), another country opposed to any sanctions against bad regimes (North Korea) and Eritrea. The really interesting list though was the 35 abstainers. That list looks like a view into the future, in part because the bulk of the countries abstaining looked less like they were seeking to avoid criticism of Russia than they were following the diplomatic lead of China – the most prominent abstainer on the list.

The numerically largest group of abstainers were countries in Africa where China has become a major player in development aid over the last two decades. Countries like Kazakhstan and Mongolia are too close, diplomatically and physically to China and Russia to have any interest in antagonizing either. The biggest surprise for me was India, which has generally been moving toward a de facto alliance with the United States and other Pacific powers to contain China. But India’s military is heavily dependent on Russian weapons systems, a relationship that goes back decades. So that is likely at least part of the explanation for that vote. Obviously, countries can and I’m sure do have reasons for voting tied to their domestic politics and perceptions of sanctions and global politics other than Great Power relationships. So I don’t mean to void any agency on the part of member countries. But the overall patterns seem telling.

The most interesting thing about the vote – and telling for the future – is that Russia seems less like a strategic partner to China than a dependent, a junior partner in an alliance in favor of autocracy and against a US-dominated world order.

[AnBr]

[LFC]

Good thing we have cooler heads in the Senate like Little Lindsey Graham.

Graham Calls For Putin Assassination

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) posted a tweet last night demanding the Russian leader’s assassination amid the Ukraine invasion because “[t]he only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out.”

I guess he just wanted to show off his big, swinging ... patriotism (or something).

[andydp]

Mar 4, 2022 18:45:24 GMT LFC said:

Good thing we have cooler heads in the Senate like Little Lindsey Graham.

Graham Calls For Putin Assassination

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) posted a tweet last night demanding the Russian leader’s assassination amid the Ukraine invasion because “[t]he only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out.”

I guess he just wanted to show off his big, swinging ... patriotism (or something).

I've been posting that as soon as the oligarchs are tired of losing billions, an "intervention" will be held.  If Vlad doesn't step down voluntarily, I'm sure an offer of "XXX Millions in whatever currency, a new identity and a plane to wherever you want" will be on the table somewhere.

[goldenvalley]

Mar 4, 2022 20:02:43 GMT andydp said:

Mar 4, 2022 18:45:24 GMT LFC said:

Good thing we have cooler heads in the Senate like Little Lindsey Graham.
I guess he just wanted to show off his big, swinging ... patriotism (or something).

I've been posting that as soon as the oligarchs are tired of losing billions, an "intervention" will be held.  If Vlad doesn't step down voluntarily, I'm sure an offer of "XXX Millions in whatever currency, a new identity and a plane to wherever you want" will be on the table somewhere.

My concern is that they won't prevail.  He will never back down because his reputation would suffer from it.  He wins all conflicts no matter what.  

And how many of those folks have money squirreled away that will sustain them long term?  

[AnBr]

Russian Oligarch Alisher Usmanov’s Superyacht Seized in Germany

One of the world’s largest yachts, owned by a Russian oligarch who faces sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine, was reportedly seized Wednesday by German authorities, marking one of the first super-yachts to be seized as Europe and the U.S. crack down on the Russian billionaires within Vladimir Putin’s orbit.

Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov’s custom-built 512-foot yacht Dilbar — which Usmanov purchased in 2016 for $600 million and was, at one point, the largest yacht in the world by tonnage — was seized two days after the European Union announced plans to sanction the oligarch, Forbes reports. The Dilbar was docked in Hamburg, Germany, where it was undergoing a refitting job since October 2021, adding that shipbuilders that were working on the Dilbar didn’t show up for work Wednesday because the German government had taken the yacht. (Hamburg ’s government has denied that they seized any property. “No yachts have been confiscated,” a spokesperson told The Guardian. “A handover [of the yacht to its owner] is also currently not planned. No yacht is going to leave the port that is not allowed to do so.”)

[AnBr]

And another one in Italy. abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/italy-seizes-156-million-oligarch-wealth-pressing-putin-83267971

[AnBr]

www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/why-biden-hit-a-nerve-with-threat-to-seize-russian-oligarchs-yachts-134374469732

[indy]

Mastercard and Visa are suspending their operations in Russia, the companies said Saturday, in the latest blow to the country's financial system after its invasion of Ukraine.

Mastercard said cards issued by Russian banks will no longer be supported by its network and any Mastercard issued outside the country will not work at Russian stores or ATMs.

“We don't take this decision lightly,” Mastercard said in a statement, adding that it made the move after discussions with customers, partners and governments.

Visa said it's working with clients and partners in Russia to cease all Visa transactions over the coming days.

www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/mastercard-visa-suspend-operations-in-russia-after-invasion/ar-AAUFtLO?ocid=msedgntp

A quick check suggests that about 75% of all cards in Russia are MC or Visa. Russian online stores probably have a pretty hard time accepting cash. Also note that prior to this announcement, they were only required to cut off banks that were specifically targeted by sanctions but this seems to indicate that now ALL the cards issued there are going to be cut off. Lines at Russian ATMs are enormous now and they will probably limit cash withdrawals pretty soon.

Wonder if those Discovery card folks are thinking 'Jackpot!'?

[LFC]

Some defense experts seem to think that Russia's military may not be in very good shape. (Paywalled)

Among the Mil Nerds

Though it is generally out of view for those of us who don’t live in that world, the world’s militaries maintain a universe of think tanks and war colleges to study all aspects of war. Some of this work is conducted by men and women in uniform and hidden behind walls of classification and secrecy. But quite a lot of it, probably most, is done by civilian researchers and academics with a lot of it available to the public, if not widely read. Last week I mentioned following the Twitter feed of Michael Kofman, an expert on the Russian military at one of the top national security think tanks funded and run on behalf of the U.S. Navy and Marine corps. But there’s a whole world of such researchers working either adjacent to or on behalf of various national militaries. You can read a lot of what they write and many are following developments in Ukraine with their Twitter feeds.

What I wanted to note for the moment is that there is a fascinating and furious global debate at the moment within this world over just what is happening with the Russian military. I’m unable to independently evaluate the relative merits of any of these arguments. And like every community of knowledge this world contains a mix of people who are highly cautious and conservative in their interpretations and others jumping to maximalist conclusions. But the discussion itself is really interesting.

Yesterday I read this short report by a guy named Justin Bronk (thanks to TPM Reader KS), a military aviation specialist at the Royal United Services, a UK defense think tank which is separate from the UK government but clearly deeply tied to its defense establishment. In this short report Bronk runs through the possible explanations both for the Russian Air Force’s relatively poor performance in Ukraine and even more its non-performance. Basically, the Russian Air Force really hasn’t been brought to bear in Ukraine, despite the scale of the Russian invasion and how much help it could be to Russian armor on the ground. He runs through a number of possible explanations, some of which he judged more plausible in the first days of the invasion, and decides that the most plausible remaining explanation is that the Russian Air Force just doesn’t have the ability to operate complex multi-aircraft operations in the way that are commonplace for NATO militaries and other advanced militaries like Israel’s.

As I noted above, I have no competence to evaluate these arguments on the merits. But the arguments seem at least plausible. I try to be on my guard for what we might call anti-Russian triumphalism in reading these things. And I think we are seeing a lot of that in the mass media. But people who study adversary militaries on behalf of (either formally or informally) their country’s defense establishments don’t tend to casually underestimate or demean those capabilities. If anything it’s usually the opposite: if you’re in the national defense business you’re sort of institutionally disinclined to question the need for a lot of national defense.

As I noted here, the possibility that the Russian military is a lot less capable than people think has a lot of implications for world politics and for politics within Russia. And while that may seem like an obviously good thing on the surface (and in many ways it would be), it also introduces a lot of potentially dangerously destabilizing forces into the world.

[andydp]

Thanks for that article. I’m not in the same league as those think tanks, but I can guarantee there is a LOT of interest in whatever video is available.

Not being an Air Force person, I did not realize how sparse the news about the Russian AF is. Frankly, because of minimal air action, an attack helicopter could lay waste to any of those columns.

One short article I read was the failure of Soviet truck tires. Armchair analysis by some indicates the tires are old, have not been driven much to keep them flexible, thereby causing sidewall failure.

One comment was of interest: the tires on their heavy haulers seem to be Chinese copies of Michelins.

[LFC]

Foreign Affairs published a piece that basically says that no matter the outcome it's going to be a cluster-f*** for both Russia and the region. Putin has created a shit-show and there's no way he's going to admit he f***ed up. That's going to screw things up for Ukraine and is going to bleed Russia badly, just when so many industrialized nations are backing away from them and taking the capital and technology Russia needs with them.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has made a strategic blunder by invading Ukraine. He has misjudged the political tenor of the country, which was not waiting to be liberated by Russian soldiers. He has misjudged the United States, the European Union, and a number of countries—including Australia, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea—all of which were capable of collective action before the war and all of which are now bent on Russia’s defeat in Ukraine. The United States and its allies and partners are imposing harsh costs on Moscow. Every war is a battle for public opinion, and Putin’s war in Ukraine has—in an age of mass-media imagery—associated Russia with an unprovoked attack on a peaceful neighbor, with mass humanitarian suffering, and with manifold war crimes. At every turn, the ensuing outrage will be an obstacle to Russian foreign policy in the future.

No less significant than Putin’s strategic error have been the Russian army’s tactical blunders. Bearing in mind the challenges of assessment in the early stages of a war, one can surely say that Russian planning and logistics were inadequate and that the lack of information given to soldiers and even to officers in the higher echelons was devastating to morale. The war was supposed to end quickly, with a lightning strike that would decapitate the Ukrainian government or cow it into surrender, after which Moscow would impose neutrality on Ukraine or establish a Russian suzerainty over the country. Minimal violence might have equaled minimal sanctions. Had the government fallen quickly, Putin could have claimed that he was right all along: because Ukraine had not been willing or able to defend itself, it was not a real country—just like he had said.

But Putin will be unable to win this war on his preferred terms. Indeed, there are several ways in which he could ultimately lose. He could mire his military in a costly and futile occupation of Ukraine, decimating the morale of Russia’s soldiers, consuming resources, and delivering nothing in return but the hollow ring of Russian greatness and a neighboring country reduced to poverty and chaos. He could create some degree of control over parts of eastern and southern Ukraine and probably Kyiv, while fighting a Ukrainian insurgency operating from the west and engaged in guerrilla warfare across the country—a scenario that would be reminiscent of the partisan warfare that took place in Ukraine during World War II. At the same time, he would preside over the gradual economic degradation of Russia, its growing isolation, and its increasing inability to supply the wealth on which great powers rely. And, most consequentially, Putin could lose the support of the Russian people and elites, on whom he depends to prosecute the war and maintain his hold on power, even though Russia is not a democracy.

Putin seems to be trying to reestablish some form of Russian imperialism. But in taking this extraordinary gamble, he seems to have failed to recall the events that set in motion the end of the Russian empire. The final Russian tsar, Nicholas II, lost a war against Japan in 1905. He later fell victim to the Bolshevik Revolution, losing not just his crown but his life. The lesson: autocratic rulers cannot lose wars and remain autocrats.

Sounds like Putin wanted to be the leader of an empire but totally overestimated his actual military and economic power.

[LFC]

This is a good description of the Russian oligarchs. Many of them have their wealth and power tied to Putin's leadership so it's doubtful they'll do anything to push him over the edge.

[AnBr]

Mar 6, 2022 19:31:07 GMT LFC said:

This is a good description of the Russian oligarchs. Many of them have their wealth and power tied to Putin's leadership so it's doubtful they'll do anything to push him over the edge.

Which makes little Lindsey's outburst quite naïve.