U.S. stops Russian bond payments, raising risk of default
Source: Reuters
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON, April 5 (Reuters) - The United States stopped the Russian government on Monday from paying holders of its sovereign debt more than $600 million from reserves held at U.S. banks, in a move meant to ratchet up pressure on Moscow and eat into its holdings of dollars. Under sanctions put in place after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, foreign currency reserves held by the Russian central bank at U.S. financial institutions were frozen.
But the Treasury Department had been allowing the Russian government to use those funds to make coupon payments on dollar-denominated sovereign debt on a case-by-case basis. On Monday, as the largest of the payments came due, including a $552.4 million principal payment on a maturing bond, the U.S. government decided to cut off Moscow's access to the frozen funds, according to a U.S. Treasury spokesperson. An $84 million coupon payment was also due on Monday on a 2042 sovereign dollar bond.
The move was meant to force Moscow to make the difficult decision of whether it would use dollars that it has access to for payments on its debt or for other purposes, including supporting its war effort, the spokesperson said. Russia faces a historic default if it chooses to not do so. "Russia must choose between draining remaining valuable dollar reserves or new revenue coming in, or default," the spokesperson said.
JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), which had been processing payments as a correspondent bank so far, was stopped by the Treasury, a source familiar with the matter said. The correspondent bank processes the coupon payments from Russia, sending them to the payment agent to distribute to overseas bondholders. The country has a 30-day grace period to make the payment, the source said.
European Union proposes Russian coal ban in new sanctions
Source: AP
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union’s executive branch proposed Tuesday a ban on coal imports from Russia in what would be the first EU sanctions targeting the country’s lucrative energy industry over its war in Ukraine. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU needed to increase the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin after what she described as “heinous crimes” carried out around Kyiv, with evidence that Russian troops may have deliberately killed Ukrainian civilians.
Von der Leyen said the ban on coal imports is worth 4 billion euros ($4.4 billion) per year and that the EU has already started working on additional sanctions, including on oil imports. She didn’t mention natural gas, with consensus among the 27 EU countries on targeting the fuel used to generate electricity and heat homes difficult to secure amid opposition from gas-dependent members like Germany, the bloc’s largest economy. Until now, Europe had not been willing to target Russian energy over fears that it would plunge the European economy into recession.
Europe’s dependence on Russian oil, natural gas and coal means finding unanimity on energy measures is a tall order, but the recent reports of civilian killings have increased pressure for tougher EU sanctions. The U.S. and United Kingdom previously announced they were cutting off Russian oil. Individual EU countries have announced efforts to draw down their energy reliance on Russia: Poland says it plans to block imports of coal and oil from the country, while Lithuania said it’s no longer using Russian natural gas.
“To take a clear stand is not only crucial for us in Europe but also for the rest of the world,” von der Leyen said. “A clear stand against Putin’s war of choice. A clear stand against the massacre of civilians. And a clear stand against the violation of the fundamental principles of the world order.” The proposal still must be adopted unanimously by all 27 EU countries and is included among a new package of sanctions. Other measures proposed by the EU’s executive arm include sanctions on more individuals and four key Russian banks, among them VTB, the second-largest Russian bank.
(TechCrunch) A month after stopping shipments to customers in Russia and Belarus, Intel has now suspended all business operations in Russia.
In a statement, the company said, “Intel continues to join the global community in condemning Russia’s war against Ukraine and calling for a swift return to peace,” adding that it will support its 1,200 employees in Russia and “[implement] business continuity measures to minimize disruption to our global operations.”
Other tech companies that have taken action in Russia include Apple, which halted product sales after the Ukraine invasion, AMD, Adobe and General Electric. Meanwhile, Spotify, along with news outlets like CNN, ABC and the BBC have suspended services in Russia in response to a new law that dramatically restricts free speech.
China state refiners shun new Russian oil trades
Source: Reuters
SINGAPORE, April 6 (Reuters) - China's state refiners are honouring existing Russian oil contracts but avoiding new ones despite steep discounts, heeding Beijing's call for caution as western sanctions mount against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, six people told Reuters.
State-run Sinopec (600028.SS), Asia's largest refiner, CNOOC, PetroChina (601857.SS) and Sinochem have stayed on the sidelines in trading fresh Russian cargoes for May loadings, said the people, who all have knowledge of the matter but spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the subject.
Chinese state-owned firms do not wish to be seen as openly supporting Moscow by buying extra volumes of oil, said two of the people, after Washington banned Russian oil last month and the European Union slapped sanctions on top Russian exporter Rosneft (ROSN.MM) and Gazprom Neft (SIBN.MM). read more
"SOEs are cautious as their actions could be seen as representing the Chinese government and none of them wants to be singled out as a buyer of Russian oil," said one of the people.
Senate passes ban on Russian oil and gas imports
Source: CNBC
WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday passed a bill to ban imports of oil and gas from Russia, the latest measure in the U.S. government wide effort to economically isolate and penalize the Kremlin for its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
The legislation, passed in a 100-0 vote, prohibits the importation of oil, gas, coal and other energy products from Russia. It comes nearly a month after President Joe Biden signed an executive order that mandated essentially the same steps.
The Senate bill codifies Biden’s order into law, making it far more difficult for a future president to reverse it. The legislation passed after having been bogged down in the Senate for weeks.
The oil import ban passed immediately after the unanimous Senate approval of a bill to revoke Russia’s permanent normal trade relations with the United States, often referred to as “most favored nation” status. The legislation would also sever the normal trade relationship with Belarus, a key Russian ally.
The United Nations general assembly has voted to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council.
Some 93 countries voted in favour of the US-led motion, while 24 countries voted against and 58 countries abstained.
In a draft of the resolution, the UN general assembly would “suspend the rights of membership in the Human Rights Council of a member of the Council that commits gross and systematic violations of human rights.”
wjfox wrote: ↑Thu Apr 07, 2022 4:01 pmRussia suspended from UN human rights council
Thu 7 Apr 2022 16.58 BST
The United Nations general assembly has voted to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council.
Some 93 countries voted in favour of the US-led motion, while 24 countries voted against and 58 countries abstained.
In a draft of the resolution, the UN general assembly would “suspend the rights of membership in the Human Rights Council of a member of the Council that commits gross and systematic violations of human rights.”
One step towards making that body a more honorable and respectful body of rights. I'd also like to see Saudi Arabia and a ton of other abusive nations suspended from it.
(Common Dreams) The Moscow offices of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other groups were shuttered by the Kremlin on Friday—a move that comes amid widespread condemnation of abuses and possible war crimes that have taken place during Russia's ongoing attack on Ukraine.
"Amnesty's closing down in Russia is only the latest in a long list of organizations that have been punished for defending human rights and speaking the truth to the Russian authorities," said Agnès Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International, in a statement.
"In a country where scores of activists and dissidents have been imprisoned, killed, or exiled, where independent media has been smeared, blocked, or forced to self-censor, and where civil society organizations have been outlawed or liquidated," she added, "you must be doing something right if the Kremlin tries to shut you up."
Amnesty said that its representative offices were closed as well as other NGOs operating in Russia. According to the group, the Russian Ministry of Justice delisted its name from the register of the representative offices, "effectively closing it down alongside with offices of Human Rights Watch, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, Friedrich Ebert Foundation, and other organizations."
caltrek's comment: This is yet another example of Russia's transition from kleptocracy to totalitarianism. Hannah Arendt makes a distinction between tyrants and totalitarian dictators. Tyrants govern by other than democratic means, but there is still space for dissent within their country. In contrast, totalitarian leaders allow no room for dissent. All thought contrary to the interests of the party and the supreme leader are repressed to the point of annihilation. Certain Russian may pretend to be indifferent to that trend on the theory that the alternative allows unwanted Western influence to infiltrate the country. I fear that he is going to come to regret that feigned indifference.
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.
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.
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.
(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.”
(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.
caltrek wrote: ↑Tue Apr 19, 2022 4:56 pmHow the Image of a Besieged and Victimized Russia Came to be so Ingrained in the Country’s Psyche
by Gregory Carleton
(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.
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.”
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.
