Ukraine (closed; covers till August 2014)

[Stan]

Stan, yes and no.

It appears a significant number of these 'inhabitants' of Crimea are Russian servicemen, their families (one supposes) and techical and support staff for the naval base... and any other Russian who happened to be in Crimea at the time.

These people would be (should be) allowed to vote in a Crimea referendum?

Mark,
Yes, I do realize that the whole enchilada was rigged. I was referring more to the Russian definition of what a sociological poll meant.

There are of course an infinite number of versions, with ITAR-TASS and the BBC not to mention at least 50 more wire feeds, upon feeds.

[OUTLAW 09]

Outlaw,
I still have the very same question



Moving forward... Let's for the sake of argument say the EU backs Putin into a corner. The very next day following a terrorist attack and the pipeline is screwed and repairs could take years.

I'm unaware of a single instance where Russia paid her bills or backed down from Western threats.

Stan---am making a difference between demands on Russia itself and demands on a Russian company tied to the WTO and EU and international legal delivery contracts. Have noticed that Russian companies definitely pay attention to their contracts and what they must do in order to do business say in the EU. In the case of the EU anti trust side they will request that payments to be made by any EU country or company be paid first to the EU and the EU will notify Gazprom that the following is still owed---if they balk and do not deliver then the fines go higher and they are then in violation of their own contracts and liable for further penalties.

Yesterday something came up on both the Kiev Post or on Interfax that indicates a potential issue covered by the anti trust side investigations---meaning is the delivered amount actually accurate as per delivery contract.

The Ukrainians are discovering after measuring their strategic gas storage which is only fed by Gazprom that they are 13B cubic meters short of what the delivered amount stated by Gazprom.

This was a point also in the anti trust charges---it took the EU over two years of intensive pipe deliveries investigations to see this type of shortages in other countries especially in the former eastern countries.

22:12 Ukraine cannot trace missing 13 Bln cu m of natural gas - PM

[OUTLAW 09]

Comment to Levada graphic.



http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.be/...ack-putin.html

kaur--a really good article on Russian internal polling---these two paragraphs stand out and maybe the author mirhond should respond to them in his own way.

But while they may be pleased with the idea that annexing Crimea returns to Russia the status of a great power, the majority, Gudkov continues, are “not ready to pay for what is taking place.” They are willing to see force used – but only on condition that no one will respond to Russia’s use of force with its own.


Other scholars, Vlasenko says, agree with Gudkov’s assessment. Sociologist Boris Dubin says that the Kremlin has managed to convince Russians that what is going in Ukraine is “’not about us.’” Historian Nikita Sokolov says that the Russian regime now is playing on the old idea of “Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality,” something that contributes to a loss of a sense of reality.

[OUTLAW 09]

Seems the Russian Foreign Ministry has awoke to a new form of sanctions and in Interfax sent out the following with the 21:53 release highlighted in red and in caps which is a warning press release.

It is dawning on the Russian leadership that money laundering and criminal organization membership can in fact be worth an international arrest warrant being issued especially since most of the oligarchs are tied to the Russian mob and launder money on a regular basis.

From Interfax yesterday:
http://www.interfax.com/news.asp?y=2014&m=4&d=11

22:04 Threat of Russians being detained on U.S. requests up amid sanctions - Russian Foreign Ministry

21:53 FOREIGN MINISTRY RECOMMENDS RUSSIANS NOT TO GO TO COUNTRIES WITH MUTUAL EXTRADITION TREATIES WITH THE U.S., IF SUSPICIONS EXIST THAT U.S. LAW ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITIES HAVE ISSUES WITH THEM

[OUTLAW 09]

Stan---back to the gas thing---Putin fired out a Russian letter demanding that the EU talk with Russia about the Ukrainian gas problems.

What he does not realize is that with every threat-- internally EU countries have already started the search for replacement supplies and from what I have read the gas amounts needed can in fact be achieved through a number of different source, fracking is being revived as a necessity and the gas drilling in several sites in Germany shows strong gas deposits.

All he is doing is in the mid to long term cutting the earnings of Gazprom and in the end hitting a two raw resource country extremely hard.

http://euobserver.com/economic/123820

[JMA]

The very next day following a terrorist attack and the pipeline is screwed and repairs could take years.

One sincerely hopes that Kerry has constantly expressed his (the US) understanding of how deeply concerned the Russians must be over the vulnerability of their various pipelines.

Yes, as you say the Russian economy will take a massive hit if significant damage is caused to the Russian pipelines.

Just letting my mind run free I would think that the careful application of special forces demolitions could cause the Russians bid headaches... like instead of having 40,000 troops 'camping' on the Ukraine border they would have to be strung out along the pipelines in a desperate attempt to prevent sabotage.

Hmmm... oner mans vulnerablity is another's opportunity, yes?

Someone should tell Frau Merkel to quickly make a new plan for gas imports

[JMA]

Well the energy dependence on Russia is a bed German and the EU made for themselves. A disastrous strategic error of judgement.

Yes clearly the idea they had that Russia needed the income from sales as much as they needed the oil/gas was dangerously simplistic.

Should they have assessed that Putin - who appears to be on the edge of insanity (as Frau merkel recently found out) - was unlikely to prove to be a stable and reliable commercial partner?

Another example of gross incompetence.

Stan---back to the gas thing---Putin fired out a Russian letter demanding that the EU talk with Russia about the Ukrainian gas problems.

What he does not realize is that with every threat-- internally EU countries have already started the search for replacement supplies and from what I have read the gas amounts needed can in fact be achieved through a number of different source, fracking is being revived as a necessity and the gas drilling in several sites in Germany shows strong gas deposits.

All he is doing is in the mid to long term cutting the earnings of Gazprom and in the end hitting a two raw resource country extremely hard.

http://euobserver.com/economic/123820

[OUTLAW 09]

Well the energy dependence on Russia is a bed German and the EU made for themselves. A disastrous strategic error of judgement.

Yes clearly the idea they had that Russia needed the income from sales as much as they needed the oil/gas was dangerously simplistic.

Should they have assessed that Putin - who appears to be on the edge of insanity (as Frau merkel recently found out) - was unlikely to prove to be a stable and reliable commercial partner?

Another example of gross incompetence.

JMA---you know what is really surprising is the Putin somehow forgot just how the Russian economy is tied into globalization.

If you look at this threats being carried by Interfax/TASS/Russian TV one might think he knows he is sitting on the long lever and has the ultimate power advantage---but in reality he is getting economically hit every day this thing drags on---ever time there is a riot somehow in eastern Ukraine the Rubel losses ground and the capital flight out of the country is now at 100B headed to the 150B mark the worst since about 2008/9.

If one takes the Interfax press releases at say face value and read between the lines on their economic, business and central bank statements Russia is in a deepening recession of their own making, economic development will be at zero and is will be worse for 2015.

So did he really think it through or is he really dangerous in the fact that he followed his "heart and emotions" and coupled with nuclear weapons makes him really really dangerous.

Interesting article on how Putin was able to take Russian into a recession when the rest of the world is recovering even including the emerging economies which Russia is.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...eze-frame.html

[AmericanPride]

Historian Nikita Sokolov says that the Russian regime now is playing on the old idea of “Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality,” something that contributes to a loss of a sense of reality.

This is not surprising if we accept the narrative I presented earlier of the Russian state as an imperial one as opposed to a Westphalian one. Does that make Moscow elites "[lose] a sense of reality" or does that mean that the West does not understand 'reality' as seen from the Russian perspective? Frankly, I think dismissing Russian actions and statements without critical analysis leads to a "[loss] of a sense of reality" on the part of Western commentators.

Should they have assessed that Putin - who appears to be on the edge of insanity (as Frau merkel recently found out) - was unlikely to prove to be a stable and reliable commercial partner?

Putin is a "stable and reliable" partner. He's actions are very predictable when one actually attempts to understand the incentives to which he responds with the greatest sensitivity and the mechanisms through which he exercises his responses. The fact that Washington, et al is constantly surprised is not an indicator of Putin's reliability or stability but a condemnation of the narrow ideological lens through which the West views Russia.

JMA---you know what is really surprising is the Putin somehow forgot just how the Russian economy is tied into globalization.

I think it is more surprising that it is assumed Putin is so ignorant as to "just [forget] how the Russian economy is tied into globalization".

[davidbfpo]

From the BBC, rather amusing:

A man who says he was injured in ongoing protests in Ukraine seems to have appeared on two Russian TV channels claiming to be two different people - a pro-Russia activist in one report and an anti-Russia protester in another.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news...where-26986657

[JMA]

Putin is a "stable and reliable" partner. He's actions are very predictable when one actually attempts to understand the incentives to which he responds with the greatest sensitivity and the mechanisms through which he exercises his responses. The fact that Washington, et al is constantly surprised is not an indicator of Putin's reliability or stability but a condemnation of the narrow ideological lens through which the West views Russia.

I probably should have used the word 'rational'.

Clearly Germany and the EU saw the perceived interdependence of the supply and demand of Russian oil and gas as a guarantee of stability. A massive miscalculation.

As far as the US is concerned I don't expect them to get it correct and the CIA getting it wrong again comes as no surprise.

OK so once again we see a massive cock-up... where to from here? How does one reign Putin in?

[OUTLAW 09]

This is not surprising if we accept the narrative I presented earlier of the Russian state as an imperial one as opposed to a Westphalian one. Does that make Moscow elites "[lose] a sense of reality" or does that mean that the West does not understand 'reality' as seen from the Russian perspective? Frankly, I think dismissing Russian actions and statements without critical analysis leads to a "[loss] of a sense of reality" on the part of Western commentators.



Putin is a "stable and reliable" partner. He's actions are very predictable when one actually attempts to understand the incentives to which he responds with the greatest sensitivity and the mechanisms through which he exercises his responses. The fact that Washington, et al is constantly surprised is not an indicator of Putin's reliability or stability but a condemnation of the narrow ideological lens through which the West views Russia.



I think it is more surprising that it is assumed Putin is so ignorant as to "just [forget] how the Russian economy is tied into globalization".

American Pride---if Putin is not so ignorant of globalization then why would a leader knowingly drive his own economy deeper into recession and especially a potential recession that will last for up to five years if further sanctions are imposed.

Putin who is an ethnic nationalist---at what point does the personal nationalism overtake reality? Putin has four pillars he has to work with 1) the military, 2) the security services, 3) the oligarchs, and 4) the Russian mob and they all have competing wishes and desires---getting a unified message out is becoming difficult for him.

Note: He has not called Merkel since his "promise" of pulling troops back from the border was revealed to be basically false and he has not called Obama in awhile---silence for him is unusual as I think everything he is proposing to the West is not gaining traction and he needs traction---there is an old communist saying out of the 30s---"if we are not moving forward even in millimeters then we are failing".

Yes one is rich and has constant income due to raw resources ie gas and oil---but as the West goes to more sanctions even that income cannot be counted on to continue in the same amounts for the next five years especially when they are actually pushing the EU to get out of the Russian oil and gas business. Russia cannot build enough pipelines to China to compensate the loss of the EU besides the Chinese tend to bargain better and never pay more than 120 USD vs the 485 USD Russia is trying to get from the Ukraine.

Russia has throttled back their move to privatize a number of industries due to their current bank financial problems and capital outflows and Russian companies are finding it harder to get foreign financing as American banks are now double and triple checking their own liabilities under the sanctions.

Russia has today now started asking all overseas foreign banks to let them know what Russians citizens have stored in their foreign accounts---kind of sounds like they are chasing money now.

Which is unusual for an economy that claims to have over 500B in foreign currency assets.

So I still question the "sanity" behind the ignorance---we an take the economic conditions a step further and argue that there has been a series of products banned by Russia under alleged agricultural disease control measures while others will argue it is in fact due to Russian counter sanctions designed to hurt the former eastern countries, but again in the end Russian consumers are facing an extreme shortage of potatoes and pork and or the prices are at levels not seen before in Moscow.

So again does Russia/Putin fully understand the deep hole economically they have dug themselves into?

I would argue that Putin or better yet Russia does in fact tends to hold to legally binding contracts but Putin has been at first threatening to change those and or has changed those contracts or outright argued they no longer exist and or he will not hold to them ie shut gas off then suddenly late this afternoon he backtracks and changes his original statement when he is reminded of the legality of those contracts.

Goes back to the Comrade Stalin comment he is reported to have made in the 30s---"there comes a time when a country's and or a person's life that they will have to change/cancel/ignore contracts if they no longer fit."

Or do they in the "sanity" of the moment judge the gaining via imperialist moves of new territory far outweighs the potential destruction of their own economy.

It is interesting that all the economic threat comments coming from both Putin and the Russian Foreign Minister are actually being met with a "ho hum" from the EU---as the first wave of fear of losing gas shipments has turned into we can overcome the issue so let's see what else Putin can manage to come up with. The economic fear is gone from the EU side--the Russia side seems to be in panic mode if one reads their constant stream of press releases for internal consumption.

[OUTLAW 09]

From the BBC, rather amusing:

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news...where-26986657

David---have been saying for awhile---their current mis/disinformation campaign is worthy of a doctorial thesis.

Have never seen in the last ten years such a massive campaign ---even after Georgia in 2008---think though they are having a hard time themselves keeping the campaign going in the right/correct fashion and contradictions are being fully seen---but it does not seem to bother them---maybe they get paid on volume not accuracy.

[OUTLAW 09]

Looks like a not to subtle let's intimidate you today activity by the Russian Navy towards the Baltic States out of Kaliningrad as a counter to the increased NATO air activities.

Have actually been surprised Putin has not brought up complaints against the NATO countries currently surrounding Kaliningrad because of the statement he made recently in the Duma speech---"he will never allow NATO to have troops stationed near the Crimea border especially facing the Black sea Fleet."

So I guess the Russians view missile firing exercises in territorial waters of another country as common everyday events.

http://www.lithuaniatribune.com/6664...one-201466649/

[OUTLAW 09]

American Pride----if one looks at Putin's many statements being released out today by Interfax and TASS he is all over the place with his comments.

He chides the US for responding to a letter he sends to 18 EU countries asking for a meeting on the Ukrainian gas issues---why does he respond like that---it is as if he feels he is equal to the entire EU and or he is attempting to split the EU from the US and it is going nowhere thus one is starting to see his frustration growing.

Then this over Interfax today:

April 11, 2014 18:53 U.S. promise to give bank guarantees as part of Ukraine aid means no real aid - Putin

NOVO-OGARYOVO. April 11 (Interfax) - The United States' proposal to provide guarantees for banks as part of its $1 billion aid for Ukraine in the absence of the banks prepared to carry this out, means there is no aid at all, Russian President Vladimir Putin said

"Our U.S. partners have reacted negatively to our proposal, and it is very strange that it is happening that way.
He is referencing I am assuming his letter to the 18 EU countries.

As you know, they said they are ready to provide $1 billion, not as loans but as guarantees. What are these guarantees? The guarantees for those banks that would be ready to finance, there are no such banks and, therefore, no aid either," Putin said at a Security Council session on Friday.

The situation is very strange, he reiterated.

"This raises our legitimate concern," the president said.
This sentence is an interesting one as he does not state what his "legitimate concern" is anywhere in the released comments.

[Stan]

One sincerely hopes that Kerry has constantly expressed his (the US) understanding of how deeply concerned the Russians must be over the vulnerability of their various pipelines.

Mark,
I was thinking that Putin would sabotage his pipelines.

The Americans, under the current administration would never think of something so creative, yet alone even perform such a diabolical act

[Stan]

Yesterday something came up on both the Kiev Post or on Interfax that indicates a potential issue covered by the anti trust side investigations---meaning is the delivered amount actually accurate as per delivery contract.

The Ukrainians are discovering after measuring their strategic gas storage which is only fed by Gazprom that they are 13B cubic meters short of what the delivered amount stated by Gazprom.

This was a point also in the anti trust charges---it took the EU over two years of intensive pipe deliveries investigations to see this type of shortages in other countries especially in the former eastern countries.

22:12 Ukraine cannot trace missing 13 Bln cu m of natural gas - PM

Outlaw,
Certainly a good point and a sore point. It wasn't long ago that Russia accused the Ukraine of "milking" gas from the pipeline to Europe.

Not too far fetched eh ?

So, who screwed who first

[Stan]

I probably should have used the word 'rational'.

Clearly Germany and the EU saw the perceived interdependence of the supply and demand of Russian oil and gas as a guarantee of stability. A massive miscalculation.

As far as the US is concerned I don't expect them to get it correct and the CIA getting it wrong again comes as no surprise.

OK so once again we see a massive cock-up... where to from here? How does one reign Putin in?

Mark,
We don't actually have an energy security policy. If we did, I hope and doubt it would have fallen under the control of the CIA. C'mon already

We are at no great risk, have reserves, and don't really care. We also cannot send LPG to anyone

[Stan]

Looks like a not to subtle let's intimidate you today activity by the Russian Navy towards the Baltic States out of Kaliningrad as a counter to the increased NATO air activities.

Have actually been surprised Putin has not brought up complaints against the NATO countries currently surrounding Kaliningrad because of the statement he made recently in the Duma speech---"he will never allow NATO to have troops stationed near the Crimea border especially facing the Black sea Fleet."

So I guess the Russians view missile firing exercises in territorial waters of another country as common everyday events.

http://www.lithuaniatribune.com/6664...one-201466649/

Hype !

It happens so much that it would ordinarily ever make the press.

When we try and send press releases on good things, not a soul shows up. Doesn't sell papers, has no twang effect.

The Baltic States have a bit to learn about BS from their Eastern neighbor.

[Stan]

As you know, they said they are ready to provide $1 billion, not as loans but as guarantees. What are these guarantees? The guarantees for those banks that would be ready to finance, there are no such banks and, therefore, no aid either," Putin said at a Security Council session on Friday.

The situation is very strange, he reiterated.

"This raises our legitimate concern," the president said.
This sentence is an interesting one as he does not state what his "legitimate concern" is anywhere in the released comments.

Outlaw,
It's a bailout guarantee and there is no less than 18 billion promised.

Simple but complicated and designed to avert bankruptcy for a crisis-hit country. Been doing it since the 70s.

We sell you a widget that costs a gazillion dollars with accessorial charges, which funds our witch hunts and does not cost the tax payer a thin dime.

This is way too easy and nothing that Putin could ever imagine