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[loganair] 16/3/2024 13:10

Ukraine is running so low on ammunition that it will run out of air defence missiles to defend its cities by the end of the month, according to reports. Supplies of missiles defending cities such as Odesa are dwindling fast, according to Ukrainian sources quoted by The Washington Post.

Russian officials have said that they know Ukraine is running out of ammunition and have decided that this is the time to strike. Along the frontlines in Ukraine’s Donbas, Moscow’s forces have continued to push back and outgunned Ukrainian forces who have complained of dwindling stocks of shells.

[1998 crisis mk2] 16/3/2024 11:58

Lots of Russian refineries being hit by new long range of Ukrainian drones

No fuel for those junk Ladas

[loganair] 16/3/2024 08:50

BBC Russian Service - 3,047 Russians killed over the past 4 weeks = 108 per day.

First 2 weeks of February - 1,194 Russians killed = 85 per day.

Last 6 months of 2023 on average 78 Russians were killed per day.


BBC Russian Service - estimates 85,000 Russians killed since the start of the conflict in February 2022.

[brwo349] 15/3/2024 16:21

Russian Election. PMSL.



President Putin faces no serious challenge as he seeks a fifth term in office. His most vocal critics have either fled into exile or been jailed at home. Mr Navalny, his fiercest opponent, is dead.

But the Kremlin likes to boast that Russia has the "best democracy" in the world. So, along with Mr Putin on the ballot are three officially authorised challengers from Russia's Kremlin-friendly parliament.

I caught up with one of them recently. It was an odd experience.

"Why do you think you'd be a better president than Putin?" I asked Nikolai Kharitonov, the Communist Party candidate.

"It's not for me to say," Mr Kharitonov replied. "That wouldn't be right."

Nikolai Kharitonov, the presidential candidate, believes it's not for him to say whether he would make a better president than Putin
"But do you think your manifesto is better than Putin's?" I continued.

"That's for voters to decide."

"But what do you think?"

"It doesn't matter what I think. It's up to the voters."

Instead of talking up himself, Mr Kharitonov praised the incumbent.


LOL!

Exit polls are predicting Putin will garner 139% of the vote.

[loganair] 15/3/2024 10:37

Ever since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Russian economy has consistently defied the dire predictions of critics.

At the start of the war, the International Monetary Fund expected a prolonged recession, forecasting the economy to contract by 8.5 percent in 2022 and 2.3 percent in 2023. While Russia’s economy did shrink in 2022, the contraction was just 1.2 percent. Last year, the economy officially grew 3.6 percent.

According to Castellum.AI, a global risk platform, Russia has been slapped with 16,587 sanctions since the start of the war. Some $300bn of Russian assets have been frozen.

Other restrictions apply to international debt markets and industrial imports. The most consequential sanctions limit natural gas exports and place a cap on Russian oil prices.

“I can’t say sanctions have had a big impact on me,” Nikolai Zlatarev, a Moscow resident who works in education, told Al Jazeera. “My weekly shop is a little more expensive and I buy more Russian brands. But I doubt that drinking Dobry Cola instead of Coca-Cola will change the election.”

Owing to high oil prices and elevated military spending, Russia has managed to mitigate much of the impact of sanctions.

“Extra spending unleashed by war can boost economic activity. But it also represents a redistribution of income away from state services towards the army,” Konstantin Sonin, a political economist at the University of Chicago, told Al Jazeera.

Military spending has swelled in recent years, rising from 3.9 percent of the gross domestic product in 2023 to about 6 percent in 2023 – the highest it has been since the collapse of the Soviet Union. This year, military expenditure is expected to account for almost one-third of government outlays.

Meanwhile, Russia’s massive energy sector has kept money flowing into state coffers, while local companies have made substantial efforts to substitute Western imports.

“Import substitution always happens with trade restrictions,” Sonin said.

“Most critically, Russia has continued to sell plenty of fossil fuels. It’s true that oil and gas exports have fallen because of sanctions, but elevated prices have kept overall revenues high,” he said.

Sonin added that “it’s important to recall the size of Russia’s fossil fuels sector. Domestically, oil accounts for roughly one-third of tax receipts and half of all export revenue”.

The Kyiv School of Economics estimates that Moscow made $178bn from oil sales last year and that revenues could rise to $200bn in 2024 – not far off the $218bn earned in 2022.

Russia has also found ways to skirt import restrictions by sourcing goods from countries acting as intermediaries for Western goods. For instance, Serbia’s exports of phones to Russia rose from $8,518 in 2021 to $37m in 2022.

For Zlatarev in Moscow, conditions are far better than the widely remembered economic crises of the 1990s.

“Compared to then, things are OK. Even if the costs of this conflict are high, Putin is still viewed as a net positive,” she said. “Most people I know have said they’ll vote for him.”

[loganair] 15/3/2024 09:57

The MOEX Russia index traded muted at 3,300 on Friday, as investors refrained from making big decisions amid the start of presidential elections, which will take place until March 17th.

On the corporate front, the main gainers were Rostelecom (1.9%), Rusneft (1.8%), and Seligdar (1.7%).

On the other hand, Rusal (-1.3%), Mechel (-0.8%), EN+ (-0.7%), GLTR (-0.7%), and Raspadskaya (-0.7%) dropped. The former fell after publishing an 84% plunge in its net profit to $282 million in 2023.

Also, Polymetal traded flat despite presenting a 40% increase in net adjusted income for the year. In other stocks to follow, Novatek will be approving the dividend recommendation for 2023.

[loganair] 15/3/2024 09:22

AI needs a lot of energy, needs secure baseline power, not wind or solar.

Since its expansion BRICs is becoming BRICS/OPEC energy block...control energy - control everything.

[loganair] 14/3/2024 16:43

3 biggest Importers of fossil fuels from Russia on a daily basis during March 2024 so far - also have included the EU:

China..€260mln
India..€150mln
Turkey €100mln
EU.....€ 75mln

Circa 40% of EU imports from Russia are into Hungry and Slovakia.

[loganair] 14/3/2024 11:07

The month of February 2024 revealing the numbers behind the Russian fossil fuel trade in yet another geography: oil products imported by the UK made from Russian crude have sent EUR 165mln in tax revenue back to the Kremlin — equivalent to 28% of the humanitarian aid it has so far provided to Ukraine.

[loganair] 14/3/2024 10:56

The MOEX Russia index fell 0.6% to 3,300 on Thursday as investors digested hotter-than-expected CPI data and the remarks of CBR's officials. The central lender hinted that the monetary policy might have to remain hawkish longer to ensure the stablizing of the exchange rate and a retreat in price pressures. Inflation is now anticipated to peak in the Q2 of 2024. Weighing on the risk sentiment further, the country braced for the 2-day presidential elections which start on Friday.

On the corporate front, all sectors traded in the red, with the exception of IT.

Among individual stocks, the most penalized values were GLTR (-1.6%), PIK (-1.1%), Rostelecom (-1.1%), Polymetal (-1%), and Mechel (-1%).

In contrast, Rusal (0.8%) and NorNickel (0.6%) advanced.

[loganair] 13/3/2024 21:06

Russia is entering its third year of war in Ukraine with an unprecedented amount of cash in government coffers, bolstered by a record $37 billion of crude oil sales to India last year, according to new analysis, which concludes that some of the crude was refined by India and then exported to the United States as oil products worth more than $1 billion.

The analysis by the CREA estimated the US was the biggest buyer of refined products from India made from Russian crude last year, worth $1.3 billion between early December 2022, when the price cap was introduced, and the end of 2023.

The value of these oil product exports rises significantly once US allies that are also enforcing sanctions against Russia are included. The CREA estimated that $9.1 billion worth of oil products made from Russian crude was imported by these nations in 2023, a 44% increase from the year before.

This flow of payments, ultimately to Moscow’s benefit, comes from India increasing its purchases of Russian crude by over 13 times its pre-war amounts, according to the analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), exclusively shared with CNN. It amounts to US strategic partner New Delhi stepping in to replace crude purchases by Western buyers, reduced by sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the analysis said.

While Russian crude sales to India are not subject to sanctions and are entirely legitimate, an examination of shipping routes by experts suggests this huge volume of shipments might involve the so-called “shadow fleet” of crude tankers, specially created by Moscow to try to disguise who it is trading with and how, and maximize the Kremlin’s profits.

The net impact of India’s crude purchases has been to weaken the pinch Russian President Vladimir Putin feels from oil sanctions. Russia’s federal revenues ballooned to an all-time high of $320 billion in 2023 and are set to rise further still in 2024.

The funds at the Kremlin’s disposal put Moscow in a better position to sustain a lengthy war than Kyiv, which is struggling to maintain the desperately needed flow of Western cash.

[loganair] 13/3/2024 20:42

Current price of oil for Russia's 3 main blends:

Urals $70.27
ESPO $79.28
Sokol $76.27


All 3 are way above the $60 price cap set by the West.

[brwo349] 13/3/2024 18:43

How the Czech Republic has just stopped Putin cold and saved Ukraine
Without help in the nick of time, Kyiv would probably have lost an entire oblast by now

DAVID AXE
13 March 2024 • 1:02pm





I don't understand US politics. How can 1 man, Mike Johnson, block $60B to Ukraine.

[loganair] 13/3/2024 09:56

The MOEX Russia index traded flat at around 3,330 on Wednesday, as investors preserved cautious mood ahead of the elections and amid increased geopolitical risks. On the positive note, however, weaker ruble provided the support for exporters shares. Among sectors, transport and metals & mining recorded the largest gains, while IT and oil & gas declined.

As for individual stocks, the top performers were AFK Sistema (2.9%), Aeroflot (2.9%), and Yandex (1.8%).

On the opposite side, MKB (-1.6%), Samolet (-0.6%), Gazprom (-0.6%), PIK (-0.5%), and Lukoil (-0.4%) declined. The latter was penalized by a new drone attack on Nizhny Novgorod refinery and the subsequent shutdown of one of its primary processing units.

[loganair] 13/3/2024 09:23

The MOEX Russia index has increased by 235 points or 7.59% since the beginning of 2024.

Interestingly only 3 stocks, Nvidia, Meta and Microsoft have been the cause of nearly all the gains in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq this year. The U.S. stock market is now down to the 'Magnificent 3.'

[masergt] 12/3/2024 20:37

The India-China boundary runs along the Himalayas, with the discrepancy in claims starkest at the range's two ends. To the west, China controls 38,000 sq km of territory that New Delhi also claims; to the east, India holds 90,000 sq km that Beijing says belongs to China. China and India previously fought over the border in 1962 and 1967 with China gaining victory in the former and India gaining victory in the latter. Since the 1980s, there have been over 50 rounds of talks between the two countries related to these border issues emphasising my point about unworkable negotiations.

As with Russia and the West over Ukraine, simmering tensions involve the risk of escalation - and that can be devastating given both sides are established nuclear powers. There would also be economic fallout as China is one of India's biggest trading partners.

The military stand-off is mirrored by growing political tension, which has strained ties between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Observers say talks are the only way forward because both countries have much to lose. Given what's going on elsewhere in the world, good luck with that!

India now has to consider what happens if you fail to confront evil and may draw on it's own conclusions from recent history:

[lunar 26] 12/3/2024 17:22

Another Russian transport drops out of the sky

[masergt] 12/3/2024 16:17

China not helping Putin's economy.

[brwo349] 12/3/2024 12:32

Very good news today. Slava Ukraini!

12/03/24
Russia fuel refineries on fire after Ukrainian drone strikes, officials say
Wave of attacks come hours after Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy says Moscow’s advance has been stopped.



A fleet of Ukrainian drones has targeted Russia, causing explosions and fires at fuel refineries, cutting electricity supplies and reaching Moscow and beyond, according to reports from Russian authorities.

The reports came hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that the situation along the front of Ukraine’s war with Russia was the best it had been in three months, with Moscow’s troops no longer advancing after their capture last month of the eastern city of Avdiivka.

Russian fuel facilities in Oryol and Nizhny Novgorod regions were on fire on Tuesday after drone attacks, local governors and media said. Air defence systems reacted to 25 drones launched by Ukraine over several Russian regions, RIA state news reported, citing Russia’s defence ministry. It was not immediately clear whether all the drones were destroyed.

[loganair] 12/3/2024 09:51

The MOEX Russia index traded flat at 3,320 on Tuesday, showing muted dynamics for the fifth session, as investors took a breather after a recent rally. The losses were logged by telecommunications, electric utilities, and chemical sectors, while consumer goods and IT advanced.

Among individual stocks, M.Video (-2.7%), Renaissance Insurance (-2.4%), PIK (-1.2%), Seligdar (-1.1%), MMK (-1%), and Segezha (-0.8%) were the main laggards. M.Video published its financial results, with the company' s net profit reaching RUB 1.6 billion in Q4 2023 compared to a loss in the same period of 2022. Renaissance Insurance also failed to convince traders of its accounts and dividend payment of RUB 1.6 billion for 2023.

In contrast, Mechel (1.1%), Rosneft (1%), and Novatek (0.7%) increased.