Russia Watch Thread

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raklian
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Re: Russia Watch Thread

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To know is essentially the same as not knowing. The only thing that occurs is the rearrangement of atoms in your brain.
weatheriscool
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Re: Russia Watch Thread

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Russia has defaulted on its foreign debt, says S&P

By Anna Cooban, CNN Business

Updated 7:17 AM ET, Mon April 11, 2022

London (CNN Business) -- Russia has defaulted on its foreign debt because it offered bondholders payments in rubles, not dollars, credit ratings agency S&P has said.

Russia attempted to pay in rubles for two dollar-denominated bonds that matured on April 4, S&P said in a note on Friday. The agency said this amounted to a "selective default" because investors are unlikely to be able to convert the rubles into "dollars equivalent to the originally due amounts."

According to S&P, a selective default is declared when an entity has defaulted on a specific obligation but not its entire debt.
Moscow has a grace period of 30 days from April 4 to make the payments of capital and interest, but S&P said it does not expect it will convert them into dollars given Western sanctions that undermine its "willingness and technical abilities to honor the terms and conditions" of its obligations.
{snip}

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/11/investin ... index.html
weatheriscool
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Re: Russia Watch Thread

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Europe starts drafting a ban on Russian oil imports.
Source: New York Times

BRUSSELS — European Union officials are drafting the most contested measure yet to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, an embargo on Russian oil products. The bloc has long resisted a ban on Russian oil because of its enormous costs for Germany and its potential to disrupt politics around the region and increase energy prices.

But E.U. officials and diplomats say the union is now moving toward adopting a phased-in ban designed to give Germany and other countries time to arrange alternative suppliers. The union took a similar approach earlier this month when it banned Russian coal, providing for a four-month transition period.

The oil embargo would not be put up for negotiation among the E.U. member states until after the final round of the French elections, on April 24, to ensure that the impact on gas prices does not help the right-wing populist candidate Marine Le Pen and hurt president Emmanuel Macron’s chances of re-election, officials said.

The timeline is as important as the details of the ban, and is indicative of the brinkmanship required to convince all 27 E.U. countries to agree to take the previously unthinkable step, as Russia prepares its renewed offensive in eastern Ukraine. But officials and diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter with the news media, said there was a growing sense that the measure would be taken even in the absence of more revelations like the atrocities in Bucha, Ukraine.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/04/14 ... il-imports
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andmar74
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Re: Russia Watch Thread

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Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of Russia's Security Council, warned in a statement Thursday Russia's military would “more than double” its forces in Russia’s Western flank should Sweden and Finland join NATO.

Ground- and air-defense forces would be beefed up, he wrote on Telegram, and Russia would deploy “significant naval forces” in the Gulf of Finland.

If Sweden and Finland join NATO, Medevedev added, “it will no longer be possible to talk about any non-nuclear status of the Baltic — the balance must be restored."

Medvedev, who served as president of Russia from 2008 to 2012 in a four-year interregnum for Russia President Vladimir Putin's two-decade rule, has struck a bellicose pose in recent months, though he is not a top decision-maker.

A 2018 Federation of American Scientists report concluded that Russia may have significantly modernized a nuclear weapons storage bunker in Kaliningrad, an exclave of Russian territory between Poland and the Baltic states.
Two words to the Russians: Shut up.

https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-new ... 1e95c48444
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caltrek
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Re: Russia Watch Thread

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Inside the Campaign Against “Putin’s Pope”
by Michael Schaffer
April 15, 2022

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ ... n-00025279

Introduction:
(Politico) Like a lot of insiders associated with Vladimir Putin, Vladimir Mikhailovich Gundyayev has faced calls for international ostracism in the weeks since the invasion of Ukraine. It’s no surprise why: He’s used his powerful Moscow perch to endorse the Kremlin’s attack on its neighbor, cheering on the troops and casting their mission as part of a civilizational battle against western decadence.

But unlike the owner of a Russian airline or retail behemoth or energy concern, he’s not the sort of figure consumers can simply boycott or suppliers can just cut off. Gundyayev — formal name: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and all Russia — is the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church. Which makes the process of kicking him out of polite society a bit trickier, and explains why that process at least partially runs through a small, iconoclastic Washington think tank.

The bill of complaints against Patriarch Kirill is long and ugly. Since taking over Russian orthodoxy’s highest job in 2009, he’s rearranged the church on more authoritarian lines, cemented a close alliance with Putin, and lent ecclesiastical legitimacy to the quasi-mystical, hyper-nationalist Russkiy Mir theory that Putin has used to dismiss the existence of Ukraine as a separate country.

Since the war began, it’s been uglier still. He delivered a sermon calling on Russians to rally around the authorities and “repel enemies both external and internal.” In another, he likened the battle to the struggle between the church and the antichrist. He’s said the war for “Holy Russia” has “metaphysical significance,” the conquest of Ukraine a matter of eternal salvation. For good measure, he’s also said that part of what the Russian forces are combating is the horrific possibility of gay pride parades. Plenty of oligarchs have been canceled for less.
Conclusion:
For the record, (evangelical minister Rob) Schenck says his real goal is to see Patriarch Kirill grow and change, too. “As Christians we believe in repentance,” he says. “We believe in making amends for one’s misdeeds, and redemption. It doesn’t have to be a permanent expulsion.”
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
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caltrek
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Re: Russia Watch Thread

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How the Image of a Besieged and Victimized Russia Came to be So Ingrained in the Country’s Psyche
by Gregory Carleton

https://theconversation.com/how-the-ima ... che-180480

Introduction:
(The Conversation) The range of anti-Russian measures taken by countries around the world since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is virtually unprecedented and hearkens back to the darkest days of the Cold War.

They’ve assumed many forms but broadly include economic sanctions, military support for Ukraine and boycotts of Russian exports. Other forms of resistance, undertaken primarily by nonstate actors, focus more on Russian culture – its music, literature and arts – with the country’s conductors dismissed from European concert halls and pieces by Tchaikovsky excised from set lists.

Yet there is no single country, international organization or command center directing these efforts.

This hasn’t stopped Russian President Vladimir Putin from arguing precisely that.

In a March 25, 2022, speech to Russia’s leading cultural figures, Putin asserted that all of these actions – whether military, economic or cultural – amount to a single, concentrated plan by the West to “cancel” Russia and “everything connected with Russia,” including its “thousand-year history” and its “people
Last edited by caltrek on Thu Apr 21, 2022 4:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Don't mourn, organize.

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raklian
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Re: Russia Watch Thread

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caltrek wrote: Tue Apr 19, 2022 4:56 pm How the Image of a Besieged and Victimized Russia Came to be so Ingrained in the Country’s Psyche
by Gregory Carleton

https://theconversation.com/how-the-ima ... che-180480

Introduction:
(The Conversation) The range of anti-Russian measures taken by countries around the world since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is virtually unprecedented and hearkens back to the darkest days of the Cold War.

They’ve assumed many forms but broadly include economic sanctions, military support for Ukraine and boycotts of Russian exports. Other forms of resistance, undertaken primarily by nonstate actors, focus more on Russian culture – its music, literature and arts – with the country’s conductors dismissed from European concert halls and pieces by Tchaikovsky excised from set lists.

Yet there is no single country, international organization or command center directing these efforts.

This hasn’t stopped Russian President Vladimir Putin from arguing precisely that.

In a March 25, 2022, speech to Russia’s leading cultural figures, Putin asserted that all of these actions – whether military, economic or cultural – amount to a single, concentrated plan by the West to “cancel” Russia and “everything connected with Russia,” including its “thousand-year history” and its “people
Not too different from pre-WW2 Germany.
To know is essentially the same as not knowing. The only thing that occurs is the rearrangement of atoms in your brain.
weatheriscool
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Re: Russia Watch Thread

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Greece seized a Russian oil tanker with 19 crew on board under Ukraine sanctions, reports say
Source: Business Insider

Greece seized a Russian oil tanker with 19 crew on board under Ukraine sanctions imposed by the European Union, Reuters reported.

The Greek coast guard said Tuesday it had detained Pegas, a Russian-flagged tanker, near the town of Karystos, per Reuters.

"It has been seized as part of EU sanctions," a shipping ministry official said of the Pegas, per Reuters.

With limited exemptions, in early April, the EU banned Russian vessels from entering ports in the bloc.
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/gr ... ar-AAWmMz6
weatheriscool
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Re: Russia Watch Thread

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Bleak Assessments of Russian Economy Contradict Putin's Rosy Claims
Source: New York Times
Russia’s central bank chief warned on Monday that the consequences of Western sanctions were only beginning to be felt, and Moscow’s mayor warned that 200,000 jobs were at risk in the Russian capital alone, stark acknowledgments that undermined President Vladimir V. Putin’s contention that sanctions had failed to destabilize the Russian economy.

The diverging assessments showed how the impact of the West’s sanctions in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and their ability to weaken Mr. Putin’s grip on power — remains uncertain nearly two months into the war.

While experts say Russia faces an economic time bomb as its inventory of imported goods and parts runs low, Mr. Putin is using the fact that the Russian economy has not yet collapsed to bolster his contention that sanctions will not deter him.

Western sanctions, Mr. Putin said on Monday in a televised videoconference with senior officials, were meant to “rapidly undermine the financial and economic situation in our country, provoke panic in the markets, the collapse of the banking system and a large-scale shortage of goods in stores.”
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/bl ... li=BBnb7Kz
weatheriscool
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Re: Russia Watch Thread

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Biden bans Russian-linked ships from U.S. ports
Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON, April 21 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden announced on Thursday the United States will ban Russian-affiliated ships from American ports, joining Canada and European nations,in the latest step to pressure Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

The White House will release a proclamation with more details. Reuters first reported Biden's planed action on Thursday and reported in early March the ban was under consideration by the White House.

"That means no ship, no ship that sails under the Russian flag or that is owned or operated by a Russian entity will be allowed to dock in a United States port or access our shores. None," Biden said Thursday.

The sources said that in 2021 Russian vessels made about 1,800 visits, a small percentage of overall traffic. The issue prompted an extensive Biden administration review to ensure the ban on Russian ships would not seriously impact U.S. supply chains.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden- ... 022-04-21/
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