JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.
OTHER RUSSIA-UKRAINE NEWS I DONE
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2014/03/russian-troops-surround-ukraines-army.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2014/03/russia-unanamously-approves-troops-in.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2014/02/russia-troops-copters-in-crimea-and-kiev.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2014/02/watch-for-afghanistan-to-have-next-arab.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2014/02/is-this-ukraine-situation-beggining-of.html
RUSSIA AND THE STOCK MARKETS TODAY
TODAY WE HAVE TO WATCH WHAT HAPPENS TO THE STOCK MARKET AS A RESULT OF THIS RUSSIAN INVASION OF UKRAINE.THIS COULD BE AN INTERESTING DAY FOR OIL PRICES. RUSSIA AND IRAN ALWAYS WANTED TO FRY THE DOLLAR AND THIS IS A WAY TO BANK RUPT THE RUBLE ALSO.BY THE WEST.THE EUROPEAN UNION AND THE WEST ARE CALLING THIS THE WORST SITUATION IN EUROPE SINCE WORLD WAR 2.
Ukraine crisis hits stock markets as Russia hikes interest rates - business live
Escalating tensions over Crimea push shares down worldwide-Russia MICEX index tumbles 10% - Graeme Wearden- theguardian.com, Monday 3 March 2014 11.53 GMT
11.53am GMT
French banks are being hit hard by the selloff, with Société Générale tumbling more than 6.5% and BNP Paribas down 3.5%.Société Générale is the foreign bank with the largest branch network in Russia, Bloomberg flags up.
11.51am GMT
The selloff is deepening in London as noon approaches, with the FTSE 100 now down 128 points or almost 2%.Germany’s DAX has slumped 2.7% in the face of the Ukraine crisis, following the news that Angela Merkel concluded Vladimir Putin had ‘lost the plot’ after speaking to the Russian leader last night.Luke Mathews, analyst at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, told clients this morning that:
“The importance of the Black Sea region to global grain markets should not be understated.” The WSJ has a good take on the wheat situation, pointing out that wheat farmers are holding onto their crop while the Ukranian hryvnia continues to slump in value (hitting new low this morning)
10.59am GMT
Reuters has fresh details of the Russian central bank’s efforts to prop up its currency:
9.58am GMT
As well as hiking rates, the Bank of Russia also appears to have spent several billion dollars to prevent the ruble falling even further:Russian C.Bank has sold over $10Bn to support Ruble today
— Steve Collins (@TradeDesk_Steve) March 3, 2014
THE RUSSIA - UKRAINE SITUATION
THE UKRAINE IS SAYING OVER NIGHT THAT RUSSIA INVADED ITS AIRSPACE.RUSSIA IS IN TOTAL CONTROL OF CRIMEA NOW.
I CAN SEE THIS ESCULATING TO A FEVER PITCH THIS UKRAINE-RUSSIA SITUATION. AND JUST AS ALL THE WORLD NATIONS WOULD GET INVOLVED IN THE UKRAINE SITUATION.THE EUROPEAN UNION WOULD STEP IN AND MAKE A PEACE PLAN THAT WOULD SEPARATE SYMBOLICALLY CRIMEA WITH THE REST OF THE UKRAINE.WE COULD SAY ITS A COUNTRY SPLIT IN TWO.RUSSIAN TROOPS WOULD WATCH OVER CRIMEAS RUSSIAN SUPPORTERS.AND THE EUROPEAN UNION AND NATO (MOSTLY EU COUNTRIES) AND THE USELESS U.N TROOPS WOULD GUARD THE REST OF UKRAINE FROM RUSSIA CONQUERING THE REST OF THE UKRAINE.
WITH THE EUROPEAN UNION ELECTIONS COMING UP IN MAY.IT WOULD NOT SURPRISE ME IF THE LEADERS ELECTED WOULD BE MILITARY LEADERS.WHICH WOULD MAKE THE EUROPEAN UNION A MILITARY DICTATORSHIP.AS ALL THE EUROPEAN UNION LEADERS WOULD THEN POSSIBLY WANT TO SCRAP NATO AND QUICKLY PUT TOGETHER A TRUELY EUROPEAN UNION ARMY OF THEIR OWN LEAD BY THE FRENCH AND SPANISH AND GERMAN TROOPS.THESE NEW EUROPEAN UNION ARMIES WOULD THEN REPLACE THE NATO TROOPS IN THE UKRAINE.THESE EUROPEAN UNION ARMIES WOULD KICK THE UNITED NATIONS TROOPS OUT OF THE UKRAINE ALSO.AND WHAT WOULD BE LEFT IN THE UKRAINE IS THE WORLD LEADER EUROPEAN UNION GUARDING EVERY PART OF THE UKRAINE BUT CRIMEA WERE RUSSIA IS INFULTRATING.THE EUROPEAN UNION COULD THEN TRY TO CONTROL THE GAS LINES AND TRY TO FORCE RUSSIA OUT OF THE UKRAINE BY CONTROLLING ALL THE GAS LINES.BUT WE WOULD SEE THE POWER STUGGLE BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE EUROPEAN UNION.THIS EUROPEAN UNION ARMY COULD THEN GUARENTEE ISRAELS SECURITY WHEN THE EUROPEAN UNION LEADS THE PEACE PROCESS AND PUSHES AMERICA TO THE SIDE.THE EUROPEAN UNION HAS THE CASH TO FUND ISRAEL AND THE BALESTINIANS.SO THE AMERICANS CAN DOWNSIZE THEIR ARMY NO PROBLEM.BECAUSE THE EUROPEAN UNION WILL BE EXPANDING BIGTIME WITH THEIR NEWLY CREATED ARMY TO COVER NOT ONLY EUROPES SECURITY.BUT THE MIDEAST SECURITY AS WELL.THIS UKRAINE SITUATION MIGHT BE FORCING PROPHECY FULFILMENT OF THE EU ARMY THAT WILL BE GUARENTEEING ISRAELS SECURITY IN THE FINAL 7 YEAR PEACE FOR SECURITY AGREEMENT OF DANIEL 9:27.ONLY TIME WILL TELL.BUT I WILL BE WATCHING INTENTLY.ITS 9:30AM MON MAR 3,2014.
European Parliament election, 2014
The United Kingdom's component of the 2014 European Parliament election is scheduled to be held on Thursday 22 May 2014,[1][2] coinciding with the 2014 local elections in England.[3] Most of the results of the election will be announced on Sunday 25 May, after voting has closed throughout the 28 member states of the European Union.
THE RUSSIA - UKRAINE SITUATION AT 11AM MAR 3,14
THE RUSSIAN TROOPS HAVE 10 ARMIES BASES IN CRIMEA SURROUNDED AND WAITING FOR THESE BASES TO SURRENDER TO THE RUSSIAN ARMIES SO THEY CAN TAKE THEM OVER.THE RUSSIAN FORCES ARE GIVING THE UKRAINE ARMY BASES TILL THE MORNING UKRAINE TIME TILL RUSSIA MILITARILY TAKES OVER CRIMEAS ARMY BASES BY FORCE. RUSSIA HAS OFFICIALLY OVER TAKEN THE CRIMEAN PENNINSULA.THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT HAS JUST VOTED FOR ANNIXATION OF CRIMEA TO RUSSIA.
AT 11AM THE AMERICAN STOCK MARKET WAS DOWN -137 POINTS.GOLD AND OIL UP.RUSSIAS STOCK MARKET AND RUBLE DOWN BADLY ON THE DAY.CHINA NOW AGREES WITH RUSSIA ABOUT THIS SITUATION IN UKRAINE.AND GERMANY SAYS PUTIN MAY NOT BE IN TOUCH WITH REALITY.BUT OVIOUSLY SHE WILL NEGOTIATE WITH PUTIN OVER THE UKRAINE.
THE RUSSIA - UKRAINE SITUATION AT 11:30AM MAR 3,14
THE EUROPEAN UNION LEADERS ARE CURRENTLY IN BRUSSELS TALKING ABOUT OUTS FOR RUSSIA THREW INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS AND WHAT THE EUROPEAN UNION LEADERS AND WESTERN LEADERS SHOULD DO.GERMANY DOES NOT WANT RUSSIA BOOTED FROM THE G-8 BUT CANADA-THE USA AND OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES DO.
ITS 11:40AM AND THE AMERICAN MARKET IS NOW DOWN -190 POINTS.11:50AM AND I LOVED WHAT THIS ONE GUY INTERVIEWED ON CNN SAID.RUSSIA AND PUTIN THINKS THE AMERICANS AND OBAMA AND THE EUROPEAN UNION AND BARASSO ARE A BUNCH OF WIMPS THAT CAN BE DICTATED BY MYSELF PUTIN WITHOUT ANY SCARE.I AM THE WORLD LEADER SAYS PUTIN.I WILL DO WHATEVER I WANT.NO WIMPS FROM AMERICA OR THE EUROPEAN UNION CAN STOP ME.NOW EVEN THE UKRAINIAN DEFENCE MINISTER ADMITS RUSSIA WILL ATTACK THEIR BASES IF THEY DO NOT SURENDER TO THE RUSSIAN TROOPS BY TOMORROW MORNING UKRAINE TIME 5AM.10PM EST.
THE RUSSIA - UKRAINE SITUATION AT 12:03PM MAR 3,14
THE AMERICAN MARKET IS DOWN -233 POINTS AND FALLING FAST.SO THE RUSSIANS WILL ATTACK THE UKRAINE BASES AT 10:00PM EST AND 5AM UKRAINE TIME.GAS & OIL UP 2.1%.GOLD UP 2%.WHEAT UP 2%.HIGHER FOOD PRICES AS A RESULT OF THIS RUSSIA UKRAINE INVASION AS WELL.THIS TRUELY IS AFFECTING THE WORLD.PLUS RUSSIA COULD STOP THE MAIN FLOW OF GAS TO EUROPE THREW THIS.PUTIN IS ON THE WESTERN SCENE WERE THE WAR GAMES ARE GOING ON WERE 90 PLANES,150,000 TROOPS,180 HELECOPTERS PLUS ARE ALL ON SCENE READY OVIOUSLY FOR TONIGHTS 10PM DEADLINE TO OVER THROW UKRAINES ARMY BASES.AND PUTINS AT THE SCENE TO OVER SEE AND CONTROL WHAT WILL BE HAPPENING.THIS PUTIN MEANS BUSINESS.LIKE I SAID TWO DAYS AGO PUTIN WILL PROTECT HIS FLEET AND KEEP THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION TOGETHER NO MATTER WHAT IT TAKES.PUTIN IS A CONTROL FREAK DICTATOR-NO DOUBT ABOUT IT.ALSO BIDEN HAS CALLED MEDVEDEV SINCE PUTIN WON'T LISTEN TO OBAMA.TO TRY TO TAME THINGS.BUT IT HAS NOT WORKED SINCE RUSSIA HAS GIVEN THE BASES A ATTACK WARNING.JOHN KERRY WILL BE SPEAKING IN THE NEXT FEW MINUTES ON THE SITUATION ITS 12:29PM PRESENTLY.
US STOCKS
Losers 12:10PM MAR 3,14
Symbol -Company -Price US$ -$ Chg. -% Chg. -Volume
RUSL-N DXN DLY RSSA BULL 3X E.T.F. -13.61 -4.71 -25.71 -973,989
LXFT-N Luxoft Holding, Inc.-32.22 -5.21 -13.92 -253,845
JDST-N DX JR MNR BEAR 3X ETF -17.04 -2.65 -13.46 -395,027
EPAM-N-EPAM Systems -36.61 -5.32 -12.69 -1,090,271
RSXJ-N MV Russia Sm Cap ETF -30.72 -4.32 -12.33 -100,957
PRIS-N Promotora de Informaciones SA -2.15 -0.24 -10.19 -30,097
ERUS-N-iShares MSCI Russia Capped ETF-16.62 -1.80 -9.77 -1,163,261
RBL-N SPDR S&P Russia ETF -21.46 -2.30 -9.68 -95,431
GUR-N SPDR Emrg Europe E.T.F.-33.53 -3.41 -9.23 -116,336
ESR-N iShares MSCI East Europ E.T.F.-21.50 -2.16 -9.12 -36,872
THE RUSSIA - UKRAINE SITUATION AT 12:35PM MAR 3,14
THE EU HAS AGREED AT THEIR MEETING IN BRUSSELS THAT RUSSIAS ACTION IS AN INVASION.AND IF RUSSIA DOES NOT GET OUT-EU-RUSSIAN RELATIONS WILL BE AT A THREAT OF BEING IN DISTRESS.AND IN DANGER OF DEMISE.
ITS 12:43PM AND KERRY IS YAPPIN ABOUT THE UKRAINE SITUATION WITH THE MOLDOVAN LEADER.KERRY SAYS MOLDOVA IS WANTING TO GET INTO THE EUROPEAN UNION.KERRY SAYS WE HAVE GIVEN BIGTIME MONEY TO MOLDOVA TO BECOME A GLOBAL TRADE LEADER AND A GREAT DEMOCRACY.KERRY AND THE MOLDOVAN LEADER WILL BE TALKING ABOUT THE UKRAINE SITUATION HE SAYS.
THE RUSSIAN BLACK SEA FLEET LEADER HAS DENIED AN ULTIMATIUM THAT AT 10PM EST OR 5AM UKRAINE TIME.RUSSIA WILL STORM THE 10 UKRAINE BASES SURROUNDED CURRENTLY BY THE 6,000 RUSSIAN ARMY TROOPS.HMM-WHATS GOIN ON HERE PROPAGANDA OR A REAL THREAT.I THINK ITS A REAL THREAT OR PUTIN WOULD NOT BE AT THE BORDER WITH ALL THE WAR GAMES GOIN ON.I THINK RUSSIA WILL ATTACK AT 10PM-5AM UKRAINE TIME.
POLITCAL AND ECONOMIC ISOLATION WILL BE AGAINST RUSSIA-BIDEN TOLD MEDVEDEV ON HIS CALL EARLIER TODAY.ITS 12:55PM CURRENTLY.THE PENTEGON HAS JUST SAID IT WILL DEFINATELY NOT BE PUTTING TROOPS ON THE GROUND OR WILL EVEN BE INVOLVED IN ANY MILITARY ACTION IN THE UKRAINE.
THE RUSSIA - UKRAINE SITUATION AT 2:30PM MAR 3,14
At 1:30PM THE AMERICAN MARKET IS -184 POINTS.GOLD UP +2%-OIL +1.74% AND NATURAL GAS -1.43%.CORN +0.66%.WHEAT FUTURES +3.61%.OAT +3.81%.THE UKRAINE IS A MAJOR WHEAT PRODUCER AND RUSSIA IS THE MAIN OIL-GAS PRODUCER IN THE UKRAINE.
LEADING OIL EXPORTING COUNTRIESRank Country/Region Oil - exports (bbl/day) Date of information
1 Saudi Arabia 7,635,000 2010 est.
2 Russia 5,010,000 2010 est.
3 United Arab Emirates 2,395,000 2009 est.
4 Norway 2,184,000 2009 est.
5 Iraq 2,170,000 2011 est.
6 Kuwait 2,127,000 2009 est.
7 Nigeria 2,102,000 2009 est.
9 Canada 1,929,000 2009 est.
10 United States 1,920,000 2009 est.
11 Netherlands 1,871,000 2009 est.
12 Venezuela 1,871,000 2009 est.
13 Angola 1,851,000 2009 est.
14 Algeria 1,694,000 2009 est.
15 Libya 1,580,000 2010 est.
16 Mexico 1,511,000 2009 est.
17 Kazakhstan 1,390,000 2011 est.
18 Singapore 1,374,000 2009 est.
19 United Kingdom 1,311,000 2009 est.
20 South Korea 1,100,000 2011 est.
21 Iran 1,100,000 2014 est.
22 Qatar 1,038,000 2009 est.
23 India 825,600 2009 est.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_exports
LEADING WHEAT EXPORTERS
#8 Russia-Export: 4 million tons
Domestic consumption: 38 million tons
Key export market: Russia largely exports to the Middle East and North Africa; Egypt is its largest wheat export market followed by Turkey, Syria, Iran and Libya.Outlook: Last summer's drought has cut wheat plantings and the Kremlin has banned exports of the crop. Plantings are expected to fall 2.3% to 64.2 million acres this year according to Bloomberg.
#6 Ukraine AP-Export: 5.5 million tons
Domestic consumption: 14.1 million tons
Key export market: The Middle East and North Africa, primarily Egypt, is the biggest importer of Ukrainian wheat.Outlook: Ukraine imposed restrictions on grain exports in October of last year but the country's Prime minister said the country will do away with the restrictions if the country has a good harvest. Germany and the American Chamber of Commerce have asked the country to stop legislation that would affect state control over grains exports.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-worlds-biggest-wheat-exporting-countries-2011-4?op=1
At 2:30PM THE AMERICAN MARKET IS -157 POINTS.GOLD UP +2.2%-OIL +1.96% AND NATURAL GAS -1.58%.CORN +1.69%.WHEAT FUTURES +5.27%.OAT +4.32%.THE UKRAINE IS A MAJOR WHEAT PRODUCER AND RUSSIA IS THE MAIN OIL-GAS EXPORTER IN THE UKRAINE.
THE RUSSIA - UKRAINE SITUATION AT 4:00PM MAR 3,14
3:35PM AND PUTIN WAS TALKING ON THE PHONE WITH THE KAZAKSTAN AND BELARUS LEADERS. ITS 3:45PM AND THE RUSSIAN U.N AMBASSADOR VITALI CHURKIN WAS TALKING TO THE U.N AND TELLING THE U.N THAT PUTIN SHOULD USE FORCE IN THE UKRAINE TO PROTECT ITS CITIZENS AND THAT RUSSIA SHOULD ENFORCE A SINGLE GOVERNMENT IN THE UKRAINE THAT INCLUDES ALL CITIZENS CULTURES.UNDER RUSSIAS CONTROL.RUSSIA ALSO SAYS THEY ARE PROTECTING THE CHURCHES AND PEOPLE OF THE UKRAINE FROM THE RIOTS THAT WERE GOING ON FOR THE LAST 3 MONTHS.AND THEN OF COURSE THE U.S ISRAEL HATER AMERICAN AMBASSADOR SAMANTHA POWER SPOKE OUT AGAINST THE RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR.SHE INSISTED NO RUSSIAN TROOPS IN THE UKRAINE JUST MONITORS FROM THE USELESS U.N.CRITICS ARE SLAMMING OBAMAS STAND IN NOT TAKING ACTION AGAINST RUSSIA IN THE UKRAINE.POWERS SAYS THE WORLD IS SPEAKING OUT AGAINST RUSSIA AND FOR RUSSIA TO TAKE A HIKE AND LET UKRAINE BE BY ITSELF A DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT AND ELECT ITS OWN GOVERNMENT FOR ITS OWN PEOPLE. POWERS SAYS UKRAINE DOES NOT WANT RUSSIA LEADING ITS GOVERNMENT.
At 4:00PM THE AMERICAN MARKET IS -153 POINTS.GOLD UP +2.29%-OIL +2.04% AND NATURAL GAS -2.52%.CORN +1.69%.WHEAT FUTURES +5.27%.OAT +4.32%.
THE RUSSIA - UKRAINE SITUATION AT 6:00PM MAR 3,14
IT SEEMS THAT RUSSIA IS STARTING TO BUILD UP TROOPS IN THE NORTH AND PARTS OF EASTERN UKRAINE NOW.AND THE AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE TOLD EVAN SOLOMON THAT IF RUSSIA DOES GO INTO THE EASTERN PARTS OF THE UKRAINE AND TRYS TO OVERTAKE IT.THAT HOPEFULLY COUNTRIES LIKE CANADA AMERICA AND FRIENDS OF UKRAINE WOULD COME WITH TROOPS TO HELP UKRAINE OUT.IT SEEMS THAT NATO HAS NO RESPONSIBILITY TO GO INTO THE UKRAINE AND PROTECT IT FROM RUSSIA.SO THE UKRAINE WOULD HAVE TO GET A WESTERN COALITION OF THE WILLING TO PROTECT IT IF RUSSIA GOES DEEP INTO THE EASTERN PART OF UKRAINE AND OVER THROWS THE NEW UKRAINE GOVERNMENT.WE WILL SEE WHAT HAPPENS AT 10PM TONIGHT.IT SEEMS RUSSIA CLAIMES THAT THE EX UKRAINE LEADER YUSHYNKO GAVE HIM PERMISSION TO PUT TROOPS IN THE CRIMEA AND ALL OF UKRAINE TO PROTECT ALL THE RUSSIAN SPEAKING CITIZENS.IT SEEMS THE REDERIC STARTED FROM THE UKRAINE - THE FACIST,ANTISEMITES ON THE LEFT THAT SUPPORT RUSSIA BUT WERE IN THE KIEV PARLIAMANT.THIS DEFINATELY IS GETTING INTERESTING.
THE RUSSIA - UKRAINE SITUATION AT 6:20PM MAR 3,14
ITS BELIEVED THAT THE ULTIMATIUM WILL START IN SEVASTOPOL WERE THE BLACK SEA FLEET WILL OVERTAKE THE ARMY BASES.BUT AS OF 6:05PM REPORTS SAY ITS A RELAXED SITUATION IN THE CITY THATS SUPPOSE TO BE RUSSIAN SQUASHED OF THEIR ARMY BASES.
BARBRA STARR IS REPORTING THAT AMERICA WILL SEND A WARSHIP NEAR THE UKRAINE IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS-TO QUOTE - THAT AMERICA HAD PLANNED FOR MONTHS.BUT OVIOUSLY IT WILL BE A SO CALLED THREAT TO RUSSIA.WHICH WILL NOT WORK UNTILL THEY BOMB SOME OF RUSSIAS BLACK SEA FLEET.THEN THE WAR WILL BE ON.BUT IF AMERICA TRYS TO SEND A MESSAGE TO RUSSIA WITHOUT ACTION-THEIR JUST WAISTING THEIR GAS MONEY.ITS ALSO SAID THAT RUSSIA IS SETTING UP REFUGEE CAMPS ALONG THE UKRAINE BORDER.I WONDER WHY THEY WOULD DO THAT-UNLESS THERE EXPECTING CITIZENS TO FLEE FROM EASTERN UKRAINE TO THE RUSSIA BORDER IN SCORES.IF THEY (RUSSIA) TAKE OVER THE EASTERN PARTS OF THE UKRAINE.
THE RUSSIA - UKRAINE SITUATION AT 6:50PM MAR 3,14
IT IS BELIEVED BY REPORTS THAT OBAMA AND HIS CO HORTS AT THE WHITEHOUSE ARE FERVERENTLY WRITTING UP ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL SANCTIONS AGAINST RUSSIA SINCE THEY WILL NOT BE PUTTING TROOPS IN THE UKRAINE.OBAMA WILL PROBABLY FUNNEL CASH THREW THE IMF AND THE BANK FOR INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS TO THE CURRENT UKRAINE GOVERNMENT TO BYPASS RUSSIA AND PUTINS CRIMEA GOVERNMENT.THEN PROBABLY THE IMF WILL DEMAND THE CRIMEA GOVERNMENT TO GIVE CASH TO THEM TO GIVE TO THE EASTERN GOVERNMENT WHO OBAMA FUNNELED MILLIONS TO THREW THE BANK FOR INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS IN TURN TO THE IMF AND THEN IN TURN TO THE SO CALLED DEMOCRATIC NEW GOVERNMENT JUST A WEEK OLD IN THE KIEV PARLIAMANT. AFTER ALL THE CURRENT LEADER OF THE KIEV PARLIAMANT IS A FORMER CENTRAL BANKER.SO IT JUST MAKES SENSE THAT THE BIS WILL FUNNEL FUNDS TO HIM THREW THE IMF TO MAKE IT LOOK LIKE A LEGITIMATE TRANSACTION OR LOAN.SO THIS NEW KIEV PARLIAMANT HAS LOTS OF CASH TO WORK WITH SINCE THE COUNTRY IS PRACTICALLY BANKRUPT BECAUSE OF THE BILIONS STOLEN AND IN RUSSIA NOW BY VIKTOR YANUKOVYCH.
Newly appointed Prime Minister of Ukraine and former central banker Arseniy Yatsenyuk
A reshuffled Ukrainian Parliament installed following a coup last week has voted to appoint Arseniy Yatsenyuk as the new prime minister of the country. Yats, as Victoria Nuland, the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the U.S. State Department, called him, is a natural choice. He is a millionaire former banker who served as economy minister, foreign minister and parliamentary speaker before Yanukovych took office in 2010. He is a member of Yulie Tymoshenko’s Fatherland Party. Prior to the revolution cooked up by the State Department and executed by ultra-nationalist street thugs, Tymoshenko was incarcerated for embezzlement and other crimes against the people of Ukraine. Now she will be part of the installed government, same as she was after the last orchestrated coup, the Orange Revolution.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0xMtXOilWY
As Ukraine Battle Boils, Russia's Gazprom Reconsiders Gas Deal-FORBES MAR 3,14
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev warned this week that the current political crisis in Ukraine meant a nearly 45% cut on natural gas from Russia would be reconsidered. And over the weekend, Gazprom, Russia’s state owned natural gas giant, said it is considering canceling the steep discount. Such a reversal of fortunes for Ukraine would increase its ballooning government debt, and nearly double the price of fuel.Ukraine is currently in the midst of rebuilding its government following the ouster of president Viktor Yanukovych last week. The country’s infighting is largely over a European trade deal that Yanukovych rejected to appease the Russians. In turn, the Russian government gave Ukraine a major haircut on natural gas prices.The country now has at least $1.55 billion in arrears on payments for natural gas deliveries, which Gazprom said on Saturday may force it to cancel the deal it made in December.Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov told RIA Novosti that although relations with Ukraine remained good and that gas for onward delivery was being delivered as promised, payments were not being made.“What is owed is huge, not just for last year, but also debts for current deliveries,” he told the newswire.Ukraine’s national gas company, Naftogaz Ukrainy, recently paid Gazprom $1.3 billion for natural gas delivered last year. According to RIA Novosti, Ukraine asked to postpone further payments until April 15. Gazprom said that Ukrainian’s debt for 2013 natural gas deliveries stood at $2.6 billion.Naftogaz was originally paying over $400 per thousand cubic meters for Russian gas, but once Yanukovych leaned towards Moscow instead of Brussels, the price was reduced to $268.50 and came with a $15 billion aid package as a Christmas present for the pro-Russian Ukrainian.Medvedev said this week that the aid package will remain, but that the gas deal would definitely be revisited.Ukraine’s new interim government, led by Washington favorite Arseniy Yatsenyuk, also reiterated this week that the country needed around $30 billion to keep its finances in tact over the next two years. The country is seeking a loan from the International Monetary Fund, E.U. and United States.Meanwhile, the country remains in a tug of war, with pro-Russian factions on one side, and pro-Western on the other.Washington warned Russia on Friday not to inflame the situation in Ukraine, but Gazprom is clearly ignoring them. The U.S. has raised questions over Russian armored vehicles and personnel in Crimea, a peninsula in the Black Sea that is home to a Russian Navy base.
A Cold War reprise as US seeks Moscow's isolation-Associated Press
By LARA JAKES 3 hours ago-MAR 3,14-Yahoonews
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a sudden reprise of Cold War sensibilities, the U.S. and its allies are weighing sanctions on Moscow and whether to bolster defenses in Europe in response to Russia's military advances on Ukraine. Secretary of State John Kerry, soon on his way to Ukraine's capital, said world leaders "are prepared to go to the hilt in order to isolate Russia with respect to this invasion."Much as when superpower tensions ruled world affairs, missile defense systems and troop levels in Europe have again become urgent questions in Washington and beyond, a renewed reality that may force President Barack Obama's administration to give up its intended foreign policy shift to Asia indefinitely.Also echoing the era of East-West confrontation, there appears to be little if any taste in the West for a direct military response to Russia's provocation.Russian President Vladimir Putin gave no indication that he would heed the West's warnings. Hundreds of armed men surrounded a Ukrainian military base in Crimea, a pro-Russian area. In Kiev, Ukraine's capital, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk alerted allies that "we are on the brink of disaster."Senior Obama administration officials said they believe Russia now has complete operational control over Crimea and has more than 6,000 forces in the region. The U.S. was also watching for ethnic skirmishes in other areas of eastern Ukraine, though the officials said they had not yet seen Russian military moves elsewhere. The officials were not authorized to publicly discuss the situation and spoke on condition of anonymity.Kerry said he has consulted other world leaders and all are committed to doing what is necessary to isolate Russia diplomatically. President Barack Obama spoke Sunday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski.Kerry planned to travel to Kiev on Tuesday for meetings with the Ukrainian government. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said the United States is ready to work with other countries and the International Monetary Fund to provide support for Ukraine's economy.In Brussels, NATO's secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said Russia's actions have violated a U.N. charter. He said the alliance was re-evaluating its relationship with Russia."There are very serious repercussions that can flow out of this," Kerry said.Beyond economic sanctions and visa bans, freezing Russian assets, and trade and investment penalties, Kerry said Moscow risks being booted out of the powerful Group of Eight group of world powers as payback for the military incursion.Several U.S. senators also called for bolstered missile defense systems based in Poland and the Czech
Raw: Pro-Russia Protest in Ukraine Turns Bloody
Russia is "going to be inviting major difficulties for the long term," said Kerry. "The people of Ukraine will not sit still for this. They know how to fight."Still, it was clear that few in the West were prepared to respond immediately to Putin with military force.At the Vatican, Pope Francis used his traditional Sunday midday appearance in St. Peter's Square to urge world leaders to promote dialogue as a way of resolving the crisis in Ukraine.Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., discussing the potential of U.S. military strikes against Russian troops in Crimea, said, "I don't think anyone is advocating for that." One of the administration officials indicated that the U.S. was not weighing military action to counter Russia's advances, saying the Obama administration's efforts were focused on political, economic and diplomatic options.Rubio and fellow GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said the Obama administration should return to plans it abandoned in 2009 to place long-range missile interceptors and radar in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Pro-EU Ukrainians protest
Russia believed the program was aimed at countering its own missiles and undermining its nuclear deterrent. The White House denied that and has worked instead to place medium-range interceptors in Poland and Romania — aimed at stopping missiles from Iran and North Korea.Experts said potential U.S. budget cuts to Army units based in Germany also could be slowed, or scrapped completely, to prevent a catastrophic erosion of stability and democracy from creeping across Europe.The Pentagon is considering new reductions to Army units in Germany that already have been slashed under Obama. Currently, there are two Army brigades — up to 10,000 soldiers — based in Germany, where armored and infantry units have dug in since World War II. At the end of the Cold War, more than 200,000 American forces were stationed across Europe.Damon Wilson, an Eastern European scholar, former diplomat and executive vice president of the Washington-based Atlantic Council think tank, said the U.S. must be ready to pour its efforts into Ukraine, even at the cost of policies and priorities elsewhere."We should be no longer deluded by the fact that Europe is a safe spot of stability and security, and not a security risk for the U.S.," Wilson said Sunday. He said that if Putin goes unchecked, it could result in war — the second one on NATO's borders.The 3-year-old civil war in Syria is already a crisis for neighboring Turkey, a NATO member state. Ukraine is not a NATO member, but it borders four nations that are — Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania.Russia has made clear it is ready to provide weapons and military equipment to governments across the Mideast that have irked Washington. Russia's permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council gives it veto power over major world deliberations."The challenge is, we do need to have some kind of working relationship with Russia?" Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., asked Sunday. "And while we can impose these costs and take these steps, we've got to be mindful of the fact that they can impose their own costs on us."Kerry appeared Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation," ABC's "This Week" and NBC's "Meet the Press." Rubio was on NBC, while Graham and Schiff were interviewed on CNN.___AP White House Correspondent Julie Pace contributed to this report.___Follow Lara Jakes on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/larajakesAP
State-run Russian oil behemoth Rosneft helps Vladimir Putin tighten his economic grip-Russia's President Vladimir Putin visits a refinery of Russian oil giant Rosneft in the Black Sea port of Tuapse with Rosneft chief executive Igor Sechin (left). A loyalist with a nostalgia for Russia’s not-too-distant past, Sechin turned the state-run firm into a leviathan.By Irina Reznik, Stephen Bierman and Henry Meyer,FEB 7,2014-Washington Post
When Igor Sechin was working as President Vladimir Putin’s deputy chief of staff a decade ago, visitors to his Kremlin office noticed an unusual collection on the bookshelves: row after row of bound volumes containing minutes of Communist Party congresses.The record stretched across the history of the party and its socialist predecessor — from the first meeting in March 1898 to the last one in July 1990, a year and a half before the Soviet Union collapsed.Sechin perused the documents and took notes, says Dmitry Skarga, who at the time was chief executive of Russia’s largest shipping company, OAO Sovcomflot.“He was drinking from this fountain of sacred knowledge so that Russia could restore its superpower status and take its rightful place in the world,” Skarga says.Sechin’s back-to-the-future fascination with his country’s communist past is something he shares with Putin, who, soon after coming to power in 1999, restored the music (though not the lyrics) of the Soviet-era national anthem and later described the collapse of the U.S.S.R. as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.Sechin is an open admirer of socialist icons such as Cuba’s ailing Fidel Castro, the late anti-U.S. Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez and the executed Argentine Marxist Che Guevara, says Victor Mashendzhinov, who studied with Sechin at college. As a young man, Sechin served alongside Cuban fighters in the Cold War hot spots of Angola and Mozambique.
Sechin, 53, has put his careful study of Communist-era documents into practice at state-run OAO Rosneft, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company by output and reserves. During a decade at Rosneft, Sechin has turned it into something resembling in size the gargantuan Soviet Union ministry that was once in charge of oil production, mainly by swallowing up rivals.Beginning in 2004, when Putin appointed him Rosneft’s chairman, Sechin arranged Rosneft’s takeover of the main assets of Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Yukos Oil, according to Khodorkovsky and former Yukos managers. Yukos was Russia’s largest crude producer at the time. Last year, having become Rosneft’s chief executive in May 2012, he orchestrated the company’s $55 billion purchase of TNK-BP, a BP joint oil venture in Russia.Sechin is the leading exponent of Putin’s stated determination to restore the state’s role in the Russian economy. Putin used Rosneft, through its acquisitions, to return Russian oil to state control. The company, 69.5 percent government owned, controls about 40 percent of Russia’s crude output.In a similar vein, Putin reestablished majority state control of natural-gas-exporting behemoth OAO Gazprom. The company had been privatized in the mid-1990s under his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, cutting the government’s stake to 41 percent.To develop high-tech industries such as armaments and pharmaceuticals, Putin created Rostec, a state corporation that encompasses 663 companies employing 900,000 people, or 1.2 percent of the entire Russian workforce. He expanded state-run banks OAO Sberbank and VTB Group, whose dominance in retail banking has edged out foreign rivals such as HSBC and Barclays.Sechin declined requests to be interviewed. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “Sechin is a believer in the role of the state in his economic philosophy while at the same time not excluding a free-market approach.”Of Putin’s relationship with Rosneft, Peskov said, “The president can’t get involved in the affairs of a company.”Even as Putin, 61, stages the world’s most expensive Olympics, the $48 billion Winter Games in Sochi, to showcase the glories of present-day Russia, he has spent his time in office reshaping the economy to resemble the country’s Soviet past.After Rosneft’s March acquisition of TNK-BP, state-owned enterprises accounted for more than 50 percent of Russia’s gross domestic product, up from 30 percent in 1999, according to data published by BNP Paribas SA’s Moscow unit and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).Russia’s economy grew 1.4 percent last year — the slowest expansion since the 2009 recession. The government projects growth will average 2.5 percent a year through 2030, compared with 7 percent annually from 2000 to 2008.
Competitive realities
“Under Putin’s rule in Russia, the state is monopolizing key branches of the economy,” says Anders Aslund, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Aslund was an economic adviser to Yeltsin in the 1990s, when the government carried out a wave of sell-offs of state assets that put 70 percent of the economy in private hands.“Incredibly, Putin seems oblivious both to the collapse of the Soviet Union’s economic system and why it happened,” Aslund says. “Half of the economy is controlled by state companies, and that is why the Russian economy isn’t growing.”
Such criticism ignores competitive realities, Peskov says.
“For example, in shipbuilding it’s absolutely pointless to carry out privatization,” he says. “You can privatize enterprises, but they won’t be competitive; they will be doomed to failure. So consolidating the assets under the state’s wing is the only way to preserve key sectors of the economy.”Putin has said Russia stacks up favorably with many European countries on some key economic indicators. For example, Russia’s jobless rate for November was 5.4 percent, compared with 11.1 percent in the euro zone.“The economy is in much better shape than in a number of European countries,” Peskov says.In furthering Putin’s mission, Sechin is more than just a loyal underling to the president, says Khodorkovsky, who accuses Sechin of orchestrating the destruction of Yukos. In December, Putin showed he’s confident enough in the economic change he’s wrought to free Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man and Putin’s most powerful rival.Khodorkovsky, who was imprisoned in 2003 on tax-evasion and fraud charges, spent 10 years in prison camps. He says Sechin has helped to shape as well as execute Putin’s economic policies.“Sechin is a real oligarch, in the classic meaning of this word,” Khodorkovsky said in Berlin on his fourth day of freedom. “He convinced Putin that state capitalism is right and is realizing this idea in practice.”Putin, a onetime KGB colonel, maintains his tight grip on the economy by drawing on Sechin and other members of his inner circle to ensure that loyal allies direct the country’s industrial strongholds and revenue flows. Sechin, like Putin, is a St. Petersburg native and worked for Putin in the 1990s.Like Sechin, Putin’s favored few are men who were associated with him before he became president. They include the chief executives of Gazprom, Sberbank, Rostec and monopoly rail operator OAO Russian Railways. Gazprom, Rosneft and Sberbank are now the country’s three largest companies by market capitalization.
‘Necessary role’
Despite his relatively low profile internationally, Sechin looms large at home.“Sechin is easily the most influential person in the country after Putin,” says Sergei Markov, a political analyst at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics in Moscow. “Putin trusts him more than anyone else.”
Having Sechin in control at Rosneft reflects Putin’s commitment to large government-run corporations.“The experience of successful economic modernization of countries such as South Korea and China shows that the state has a necessary role to play,” Putin said in a 2012 campaign manifesto. “Large private capital willingly doesn’t want to go into new areas, because it doesn’t want to carry major risks.”Lately, that private capital has been flowing away from Russia. Concerns about Putin’s treatment of Khodorkovsky and what it said about doing business in Russia encouraged investors to pull $420.6 billion out of the country from 2008 to the end of last year, according to the central bank — a trend the government has said it wants to reverse.Khodorkovsky’s release from prison won’t be enough to allay the concerns of foreign investors, said Alexander Kliment and Yael Levine of Eurasia Group, a political-risk research firm. His release, they say, was a public-relations stunt ahead of the Sochi Olympics.The key drag on the economy is corruption, much of it concentrated in the state sector, says Elena Panfilova, head of Berlin-based Transparency International’s Russia branch. Russia was ranked the most corrupt nation among the Group of 20 advanced economies in the organization’s 2013 Corruption Perceptions Index.Another hindrance is the fact that state-run companies face no incentive to cut costs and eliminate waste, because non-state shareholders are in a minority, says Mattias Westman, chief executive of Prosperity Capital Management, the largest Russia-focused equity investor, which manages about $4 billion in Russia and other former Soviet countries.
Perilously dependent
Largely thanks to Rosneft and Gazprom, Russia — with a population of 143 million — is the world’s largest energy exporter by barrels of oil equivalent a day and the biggest crude producer after Saudi Arabia. The government receives about half of its budget revenue from oil and gas exports.The EBRD said in December 2012 that Russia has become perilously dependent on commodities and is failing to prepare for falling oil output in 20 years. Lev Snykov, a partner at Greenwich Capital in Moscow, says the price needs to be at $120 a barrel or higher for the government to balance the budget. The price of Brent crude was $107.23 on Jan. 29.When Sechin became chief of Rosneft, he had been deeply involved in the company. As chairman beginning in 2004, he had a decisive say in strategic decisions because of his unrivaled access to the president, according to Vladimir Milov, who was deputy energy minister in 2002.As a boss, Sechin displayed a ruthless streak, Milov says. In 2010, he initiated the sacking of chief executive Sergei Bogdanchikov, a lifelong oilman who had kept Rosneft afloat through the volatile economic times of the late 1990s, Milov says.While serving as Rosneft chairman, Sechin was also appointed deputy prime minister with responsibility for the energy sector in 2008. He held the Rosneft position until 2011.He was the most effective bureaucrat in the government, says former central bank first deputy chairman Sergei Aleksashenko.“From the point of view of bureaucratic management, he was simply amazing,” says Aleksashenko, director of macroeconomic research at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. “He worked like a machine.”Under Sechin, Rosneft has grown into a leviathan. From 2010 through 2013, its annual revenue increased 128 percent to an estimated $143.6 billion.Its oil and gas output of 4.88 million barrels a day as of the end of the third quarter of 2013 was greater than Exxon Mobil’s 4.02 million and PetroChina’s 3.8 million; its proven oil and gas reserves, including TNK-BP, rose to 29.6 billion barrels at the end of 2012, above Exxon’s (25 billion) and PetroChina’s (23 billion).The company posted an eightfold rise in third-quarter profit in 2013, after recording a $4.98 billion gain on the value of TNK-BP. Sechin clinched his latest deal Dec. 20 — the day of Khodorkovsky’s release — with the acquisition of Morgan Stanley’s global oil-trading and transport business for an undisclosed sum.
Sechin has also presided over a $270 billion supply deal signed in June that will make China Russia’s largest crude customer during the coming decade.Compared with non-state-owned energy giants such as Exxon, Rosneft is inefficient. Even though Rosneft’s lifting costs — the cost of getting oil out of the ground — are less than a third of Exxon’s, the Russian company’s workforce is less productive.Net profit per employee at Rosneft was $70,815 in 2012, vs. $620,026 for Exxon. Rosneft’s price-to-earnings ratio was 5.4, compared with Exxon’s 13.2 as of Jan. 13. Rosneft shares fell 6.87 percent in 2013, while Exxon shares rose 16.93 percent.“The main reason to hold Rosneft is the reserves,” Greenwich Capital’s Snykov says.In college, Sechin pored over Marxist-Leninist texts and could cite from memory biographical details of Communist leaders through the decades, recalls Larisa Volodimerova, a fellow student.After graduating in 1984 with a PhD in economics and being fluent in Portuguese and French, Sechin joined the Soviet Army and served as a translator in Portuguese-speaking Mozambique and Angola, where Soviet- and U.S.-backed factions competed for dominance during the final decades of the Cold War.When Putin went to Moscow in 1996 to work as a senior Kremlin official under Yeltsin, Sechin followed as a lower-ranking bureaucrat in the presidential administration. When Putin became president in 2000, Sechin spent eight years as his deputy chief of staff.Constitutionally barred from serving more than two consecutive terms as president, Putin bided his time for four years as prime minister and installed Sechin as deputy prime minister while Dmitry Medvedev sat in as head of state. When Putin reclaimed the presidency in 2012, he appointed Sechin as chief of Rosneft.In acquiring first Yukos and then TNK-BP from BP and its billionaire partners in March, Rosneft gained control of companies that had pioneered the use of Western technology and management in Russia.Yukos hired foreign executives such as Bruce Misamore, who made it the first Russian company to switch to quarterly financial reporting under U.S. accounting standards. Yukos also introduced drilling techniques to bolster crude output, which declined in the 1990s.BP set up TNK-BP in 2003 with Putin’s blessing. While the new company paid $19 billion in dividends to BP from its inception, according to BP’s 2012 annual report, infighting between the Russian and British partners eventually led to last year’s takeover.Under that deal, BP has a 19.75 percent stake in Rosneft and BP chief Bob Dudley occupies one of two seats BP will eventually be entitled to on Rosneft’s nine-person board of directors. Former Exxon senior vice president Donald Humphreys and former Morgan Stanley chief executive John Mack are among the four independent board members.TNK-BP increased production by more than 40 percent during the nine years before Rosneft bought it.“The concern is, will Rosneft be able to achieve that same level of operating efficiency as TNK-BP did before it was acquired?” says Rob West, an oil analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.Rosneft is also shouldering huge debts, says Tatiana Mitrova, of the Energy Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Following the TNK-BP deal, the company’s debt more than doubled, to $72 billion.To ease financial pressures, Rosneft has drawn down the first tranche of up to $70 billion in advance payments from China National Petroleum in exchange for supplies.In October, Rosneft separately signed a provisional $85 billion agreement to supply China Petrochemical with 100 million metric tons of crude over 10 years. The agreement may restrict Rosneft’s ability to supply other customers at potentially higher prices, West says.Sechin is a go-to man, says Sovcomflot’s ex-head Skarga.“The richer Rosneft becomes, the more his influence grows,” Skarga says.Unlike Russians who accumulated vast wealth during the privatization of state industries, Sechin isn’t preoccupied with money, he says. “He doesn’t have any billions,” he says.
What Sechin does have, Skarga says, is power. He will have it as long as Putin does, says Masha Lipman, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center.Sechin has his eyes on a post-communist breakthrough: In a Jan. 9 research note, Sberbank said Russian oil output will probably approach the Soviet-era peak of 11.4 million barrels a day by 2016 or 2017.“It would be a very big psychological milestone for Russia to get back to the Soviet-era peak production,” says Julian Lee, a senior analyst at the Center for Global Energy Studies.The full version of this Bloomberg Markets article appears in the magazine’s March issue.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/state-run-russian-oil-behemoth-rosneft-helps-vladimir-putin-tighten-his-economic-grip/2014/02/07/c725a702-8d06-11e3-95dd-36ff657a4dae_story.html
OTHER RUSSIA-UKRAINE NEWS I DONE
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2014/03/russian-troops-surround-ukraines-army.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2014/03/russia-unanamously-approves-troops-in.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2014/02/russia-troops-copters-in-crimea-and-kiev.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2014/02/watch-for-afghanistan-to-have-next-arab.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.ca/2014/02/is-this-ukraine-situation-beggining-of.html
RUSSIA AND THE STOCK MARKETS TODAY
TODAY WE HAVE TO WATCH WHAT HAPPENS TO THE STOCK MARKET AS A RESULT OF THIS RUSSIAN INVASION OF UKRAINE.THIS COULD BE AN INTERESTING DAY FOR OIL PRICES. RUSSIA AND IRAN ALWAYS WANTED TO FRY THE DOLLAR AND THIS IS A WAY TO BANK RUPT THE RUBLE ALSO.BY THE WEST.THE EUROPEAN UNION AND THE WEST ARE CALLING THIS THE WORST SITUATION IN EUROPE SINCE WORLD WAR 2.
Ukraine crisis hits stock markets as Russia hikes interest rates - business live
Escalating tensions over Crimea push shares down worldwide-Russia MICEX index tumbles 10% - Graeme Wearden- theguardian.com, Monday 3 March 2014 11.53 GMT
11.53am GMT
French banks are being hit hard by the selloff, with Société Générale tumbling more than 6.5% and BNP Paribas down 3.5%.Société Générale is the foreign bank with the largest branch network in Russia, Bloomberg flags up.
11.51am GMT
The selloff is deepening in London as noon approaches, with the FTSE 100 now down 128 points or almost 2%.Germany’s DAX has slumped 2.7% in the face of the Ukraine crisis, following the news that Angela Merkel concluded Vladimir Putin had ‘lost the plot’ after speaking to the Russian leader last night.Luke Mathews, analyst at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, told clients this morning that:
“The importance of the Black Sea region to global grain markets should not be understated.” The WSJ has a good take on the wheat situation, pointing out that wheat farmers are holding onto their crop while the Ukranian hryvnia continues to slump in value (hitting new low this morning)
10.59am GMT
Reuters has fresh details of the Russian central bank’s efforts to prop up its currency:
9.58am GMT
As well as hiking rates, the Bank of Russia also appears to have spent several billion dollars to prevent the ruble falling even further:Russian C.Bank has sold over $10Bn to support Ruble today
— Steve Collins (@TradeDesk_Steve) March 3, 2014
THE RUSSIA - UKRAINE SITUATION
THE UKRAINE IS SAYING OVER NIGHT THAT RUSSIA INVADED ITS AIRSPACE.RUSSIA IS IN TOTAL CONTROL OF CRIMEA NOW.
I CAN SEE THIS ESCULATING TO A FEVER PITCH THIS UKRAINE-RUSSIA SITUATION. AND JUST AS ALL THE WORLD NATIONS WOULD GET INVOLVED IN THE UKRAINE SITUATION.THE EUROPEAN UNION WOULD STEP IN AND MAKE A PEACE PLAN THAT WOULD SEPARATE SYMBOLICALLY CRIMEA WITH THE REST OF THE UKRAINE.WE COULD SAY ITS A COUNTRY SPLIT IN TWO.RUSSIAN TROOPS WOULD WATCH OVER CRIMEAS RUSSIAN SUPPORTERS.AND THE EUROPEAN UNION AND NATO (MOSTLY EU COUNTRIES) AND THE USELESS U.N TROOPS WOULD GUARD THE REST OF UKRAINE FROM RUSSIA CONQUERING THE REST OF THE UKRAINE.
WITH THE EUROPEAN UNION ELECTIONS COMING UP IN MAY.IT WOULD NOT SURPRISE ME IF THE LEADERS ELECTED WOULD BE MILITARY LEADERS.WHICH WOULD MAKE THE EUROPEAN UNION A MILITARY DICTATORSHIP.AS ALL THE EUROPEAN UNION LEADERS WOULD THEN POSSIBLY WANT TO SCRAP NATO AND QUICKLY PUT TOGETHER A TRUELY EUROPEAN UNION ARMY OF THEIR OWN LEAD BY THE FRENCH AND SPANISH AND GERMAN TROOPS.THESE NEW EUROPEAN UNION ARMIES WOULD THEN REPLACE THE NATO TROOPS IN THE UKRAINE.THESE EUROPEAN UNION ARMIES WOULD KICK THE UNITED NATIONS TROOPS OUT OF THE UKRAINE ALSO.AND WHAT WOULD BE LEFT IN THE UKRAINE IS THE WORLD LEADER EUROPEAN UNION GUARDING EVERY PART OF THE UKRAINE BUT CRIMEA WERE RUSSIA IS INFULTRATING.THE EUROPEAN UNION COULD THEN TRY TO CONTROL THE GAS LINES AND TRY TO FORCE RUSSIA OUT OF THE UKRAINE BY CONTROLLING ALL THE GAS LINES.BUT WE WOULD SEE THE POWER STUGGLE BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE EUROPEAN UNION.THIS EUROPEAN UNION ARMY COULD THEN GUARENTEE ISRAELS SECURITY WHEN THE EUROPEAN UNION LEADS THE PEACE PROCESS AND PUSHES AMERICA TO THE SIDE.THE EUROPEAN UNION HAS THE CASH TO FUND ISRAEL AND THE BALESTINIANS.SO THE AMERICANS CAN DOWNSIZE THEIR ARMY NO PROBLEM.BECAUSE THE EUROPEAN UNION WILL BE EXPANDING BIGTIME WITH THEIR NEWLY CREATED ARMY TO COVER NOT ONLY EUROPES SECURITY.BUT THE MIDEAST SECURITY AS WELL.THIS UKRAINE SITUATION MIGHT BE FORCING PROPHECY FULFILMENT OF THE EU ARMY THAT WILL BE GUARENTEEING ISRAELS SECURITY IN THE FINAL 7 YEAR PEACE FOR SECURITY AGREEMENT OF DANIEL 9:27.ONLY TIME WILL TELL.BUT I WILL BE WATCHING INTENTLY.ITS 9:30AM MON MAR 3,2014.
European Parliament election, 2014
The United Kingdom's component of the 2014 European Parliament election is scheduled to be held on Thursday 22 May 2014,[1][2] coinciding with the 2014 local elections in England.[3] Most of the results of the election will be announced on Sunday 25 May, after voting has closed throughout the 28 member states of the European Union.
THE RUSSIA - UKRAINE SITUATION AT 11AM MAR 3,14
THE RUSSIAN TROOPS HAVE 10 ARMIES BASES IN CRIMEA SURROUNDED AND WAITING FOR THESE BASES TO SURRENDER TO THE RUSSIAN ARMIES SO THEY CAN TAKE THEM OVER.THE RUSSIAN FORCES ARE GIVING THE UKRAINE ARMY BASES TILL THE MORNING UKRAINE TIME TILL RUSSIA MILITARILY TAKES OVER CRIMEAS ARMY BASES BY FORCE. RUSSIA HAS OFFICIALLY OVER TAKEN THE CRIMEAN PENNINSULA.THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT HAS JUST VOTED FOR ANNIXATION OF CRIMEA TO RUSSIA.
AT 11AM THE AMERICAN STOCK MARKET WAS DOWN -137 POINTS.GOLD AND OIL UP.RUSSIAS STOCK MARKET AND RUBLE DOWN BADLY ON THE DAY.CHINA NOW AGREES WITH RUSSIA ABOUT THIS SITUATION IN UKRAINE.AND GERMANY SAYS PUTIN MAY NOT BE IN TOUCH WITH REALITY.BUT OVIOUSLY SHE WILL NEGOTIATE WITH PUTIN OVER THE UKRAINE.
THE RUSSIA - UKRAINE SITUATION AT 11:30AM MAR 3,14
THE EUROPEAN UNION LEADERS ARE CURRENTLY IN BRUSSELS TALKING ABOUT OUTS FOR RUSSIA THREW INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS AND WHAT THE EUROPEAN UNION LEADERS AND WESTERN LEADERS SHOULD DO.GERMANY DOES NOT WANT RUSSIA BOOTED FROM THE G-8 BUT CANADA-THE USA AND OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES DO.
ITS 11:40AM AND THE AMERICAN MARKET IS NOW DOWN -190 POINTS.11:50AM AND I LOVED WHAT THIS ONE GUY INTERVIEWED ON CNN SAID.RUSSIA AND PUTIN THINKS THE AMERICANS AND OBAMA AND THE EUROPEAN UNION AND BARASSO ARE A BUNCH OF WIMPS THAT CAN BE DICTATED BY MYSELF PUTIN WITHOUT ANY SCARE.I AM THE WORLD LEADER SAYS PUTIN.I WILL DO WHATEVER I WANT.NO WIMPS FROM AMERICA OR THE EUROPEAN UNION CAN STOP ME.NOW EVEN THE UKRAINIAN DEFENCE MINISTER ADMITS RUSSIA WILL ATTACK THEIR BASES IF THEY DO NOT SURENDER TO THE RUSSIAN TROOPS BY TOMORROW MORNING UKRAINE TIME 5AM.10PM EST.
THE RUSSIA - UKRAINE SITUATION AT 12:03PM MAR 3,14
THE AMERICAN MARKET IS DOWN -233 POINTS AND FALLING FAST.SO THE RUSSIANS WILL ATTACK THE UKRAINE BASES AT 10:00PM EST AND 5AM UKRAINE TIME.GAS & OIL UP 2.1%.GOLD UP 2%.WHEAT UP 2%.HIGHER FOOD PRICES AS A RESULT OF THIS RUSSIA UKRAINE INVASION AS WELL.THIS TRUELY IS AFFECTING THE WORLD.PLUS RUSSIA COULD STOP THE MAIN FLOW OF GAS TO EUROPE THREW THIS.PUTIN IS ON THE WESTERN SCENE WERE THE WAR GAMES ARE GOING ON WERE 90 PLANES,150,000 TROOPS,180 HELECOPTERS PLUS ARE ALL ON SCENE READY OVIOUSLY FOR TONIGHTS 10PM DEADLINE TO OVER THROW UKRAINES ARMY BASES.AND PUTINS AT THE SCENE TO OVER SEE AND CONTROL WHAT WILL BE HAPPENING.THIS PUTIN MEANS BUSINESS.LIKE I SAID TWO DAYS AGO PUTIN WILL PROTECT HIS FLEET AND KEEP THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION TOGETHER NO MATTER WHAT IT TAKES.PUTIN IS A CONTROL FREAK DICTATOR-NO DOUBT ABOUT IT.ALSO BIDEN HAS CALLED MEDVEDEV SINCE PUTIN WON'T LISTEN TO OBAMA.TO TRY TO TAME THINGS.BUT IT HAS NOT WORKED SINCE RUSSIA HAS GIVEN THE BASES A ATTACK WARNING.JOHN KERRY WILL BE SPEAKING IN THE NEXT FEW MINUTES ON THE SITUATION ITS 12:29PM PRESENTLY.
US STOCKS
Losers 12:10PM MAR 3,14
Symbol -Company -Price US$ -$ Chg. -% Chg. -Volume
RUSL-N DXN DLY RSSA BULL 3X E.T.F. -13.61 -4.71 -25.71 -973,989
LXFT-N Luxoft Holding, Inc.-32.22 -5.21 -13.92 -253,845
JDST-N DX JR MNR BEAR 3X ETF -17.04 -2.65 -13.46 -395,027
EPAM-N-EPAM Systems -36.61 -5.32 -12.69 -1,090,271
RSXJ-N MV Russia Sm Cap ETF -30.72 -4.32 -12.33 -100,957
PRIS-N Promotora de Informaciones SA -2.15 -0.24 -10.19 -30,097
ERUS-N-iShares MSCI Russia Capped ETF-16.62 -1.80 -9.77 -1,163,261
RBL-N SPDR S&P Russia ETF -21.46 -2.30 -9.68 -95,431
GUR-N SPDR Emrg Europe E.T.F.-33.53 -3.41 -9.23 -116,336
ESR-N iShares MSCI East Europ E.T.F.-21.50 -2.16 -9.12 -36,872
THE RUSSIA - UKRAINE SITUATION AT 12:35PM MAR 3,14
THE EU HAS AGREED AT THEIR MEETING IN BRUSSELS THAT RUSSIAS ACTION IS AN INVASION.AND IF RUSSIA DOES NOT GET OUT-EU-RUSSIAN RELATIONS WILL BE AT A THREAT OF BEING IN DISTRESS.AND IN DANGER OF DEMISE.
ITS 12:43PM AND KERRY IS YAPPIN ABOUT THE UKRAINE SITUATION WITH THE MOLDOVAN LEADER.KERRY SAYS MOLDOVA IS WANTING TO GET INTO THE EUROPEAN UNION.KERRY SAYS WE HAVE GIVEN BIGTIME MONEY TO MOLDOVA TO BECOME A GLOBAL TRADE LEADER AND A GREAT DEMOCRACY.KERRY AND THE MOLDOVAN LEADER WILL BE TALKING ABOUT THE UKRAINE SITUATION HE SAYS.
THE RUSSIAN BLACK SEA FLEET LEADER HAS DENIED AN ULTIMATIUM THAT AT 10PM EST OR 5AM UKRAINE TIME.RUSSIA WILL STORM THE 10 UKRAINE BASES SURROUNDED CURRENTLY BY THE 6,000 RUSSIAN ARMY TROOPS.HMM-WHATS GOIN ON HERE PROPAGANDA OR A REAL THREAT.I THINK ITS A REAL THREAT OR PUTIN WOULD NOT BE AT THE BORDER WITH ALL THE WAR GAMES GOIN ON.I THINK RUSSIA WILL ATTACK AT 10PM-5AM UKRAINE TIME.
POLITCAL AND ECONOMIC ISOLATION WILL BE AGAINST RUSSIA-BIDEN TOLD MEDVEDEV ON HIS CALL EARLIER TODAY.ITS 12:55PM CURRENTLY.THE PENTEGON HAS JUST SAID IT WILL DEFINATELY NOT BE PUTTING TROOPS ON THE GROUND OR WILL EVEN BE INVOLVED IN ANY MILITARY ACTION IN THE UKRAINE.
THE RUSSIA - UKRAINE SITUATION AT 2:30PM MAR 3,14
At 1:30PM THE AMERICAN MARKET IS -184 POINTS.GOLD UP +2%-OIL +1.74% AND NATURAL GAS -1.43%.CORN +0.66%.WHEAT FUTURES +3.61%.OAT +3.81%.THE UKRAINE IS A MAJOR WHEAT PRODUCER AND RUSSIA IS THE MAIN OIL-GAS PRODUCER IN THE UKRAINE.
LEADING OIL EXPORTING COUNTRIESRank Country/Region Oil - exports (bbl/day) Date of information
1 Saudi Arabia 7,635,000 2010 est.
2 Russia 5,010,000 2010 est.
3 United Arab Emirates 2,395,000 2009 est.
4 Norway 2,184,000 2009 est.
5 Iraq 2,170,000 2011 est.
6 Kuwait 2,127,000 2009 est.
7 Nigeria 2,102,000 2009 est.
9 Canada 1,929,000 2009 est.
10 United States 1,920,000 2009 est.
11 Netherlands 1,871,000 2009 est.
12 Venezuela 1,871,000 2009 est.
13 Angola 1,851,000 2009 est.
14 Algeria 1,694,000 2009 est.
15 Libya 1,580,000 2010 est.
16 Mexico 1,511,000 2009 est.
17 Kazakhstan 1,390,000 2011 est.
18 Singapore 1,374,000 2009 est.
19 United Kingdom 1,311,000 2009 est.
20 South Korea 1,100,000 2011 est.
21 Iran 1,100,000 2014 est.
22 Qatar 1,038,000 2009 est.
23 India 825,600 2009 est.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_exports
LEADING WHEAT EXPORTERS
#8 Russia-Export: 4 million tons
Domestic consumption: 38 million tons
Key export market: Russia largely exports to the Middle East and North Africa; Egypt is its largest wheat export market followed by Turkey, Syria, Iran and Libya.Outlook: Last summer's drought has cut wheat plantings and the Kremlin has banned exports of the crop. Plantings are expected to fall 2.3% to 64.2 million acres this year according to Bloomberg.
#6 Ukraine AP-Export: 5.5 million tons
Domestic consumption: 14.1 million tons
Key export market: The Middle East and North Africa, primarily Egypt, is the biggest importer of Ukrainian wheat.Outlook: Ukraine imposed restrictions on grain exports in October of last year but the country's Prime minister said the country will do away with the restrictions if the country has a good harvest. Germany and the American Chamber of Commerce have asked the country to stop legislation that would affect state control over grains exports.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-worlds-biggest-wheat-exporting-countries-2011-4?op=1
At 2:30PM THE AMERICAN MARKET IS -157 POINTS.GOLD UP +2.2%-OIL +1.96% AND NATURAL GAS -1.58%.CORN +1.69%.WHEAT FUTURES +5.27%.OAT +4.32%.THE UKRAINE IS A MAJOR WHEAT PRODUCER AND RUSSIA IS THE MAIN OIL-GAS EXPORTER IN THE UKRAINE.
THE RUSSIA - UKRAINE SITUATION AT 4:00PM MAR 3,14
3:35PM AND PUTIN WAS TALKING ON THE PHONE WITH THE KAZAKSTAN AND BELARUS LEADERS. ITS 3:45PM AND THE RUSSIAN U.N AMBASSADOR VITALI CHURKIN WAS TALKING TO THE U.N AND TELLING THE U.N THAT PUTIN SHOULD USE FORCE IN THE UKRAINE TO PROTECT ITS CITIZENS AND THAT RUSSIA SHOULD ENFORCE A SINGLE GOVERNMENT IN THE UKRAINE THAT INCLUDES ALL CITIZENS CULTURES.UNDER RUSSIAS CONTROL.RUSSIA ALSO SAYS THEY ARE PROTECTING THE CHURCHES AND PEOPLE OF THE UKRAINE FROM THE RIOTS THAT WERE GOING ON FOR THE LAST 3 MONTHS.AND THEN OF COURSE THE U.S ISRAEL HATER AMERICAN AMBASSADOR SAMANTHA POWER SPOKE OUT AGAINST THE RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR.SHE INSISTED NO RUSSIAN TROOPS IN THE UKRAINE JUST MONITORS FROM THE USELESS U.N.CRITICS ARE SLAMMING OBAMAS STAND IN NOT TAKING ACTION AGAINST RUSSIA IN THE UKRAINE.POWERS SAYS THE WORLD IS SPEAKING OUT AGAINST RUSSIA AND FOR RUSSIA TO TAKE A HIKE AND LET UKRAINE BE BY ITSELF A DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT AND ELECT ITS OWN GOVERNMENT FOR ITS OWN PEOPLE. POWERS SAYS UKRAINE DOES NOT WANT RUSSIA LEADING ITS GOVERNMENT.
At 4:00PM THE AMERICAN MARKET IS -153 POINTS.GOLD UP +2.29%-OIL +2.04% AND NATURAL GAS -2.52%.CORN +1.69%.WHEAT FUTURES +5.27%.OAT +4.32%.
THE RUSSIA - UKRAINE SITUATION AT 6:00PM MAR 3,14
IT SEEMS THAT RUSSIA IS STARTING TO BUILD UP TROOPS IN THE NORTH AND PARTS OF EASTERN UKRAINE NOW.AND THE AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE TOLD EVAN SOLOMON THAT IF RUSSIA DOES GO INTO THE EASTERN PARTS OF THE UKRAINE AND TRYS TO OVERTAKE IT.THAT HOPEFULLY COUNTRIES LIKE CANADA AMERICA AND FRIENDS OF UKRAINE WOULD COME WITH TROOPS TO HELP UKRAINE OUT.IT SEEMS THAT NATO HAS NO RESPONSIBILITY TO GO INTO THE UKRAINE AND PROTECT IT FROM RUSSIA.SO THE UKRAINE WOULD HAVE TO GET A WESTERN COALITION OF THE WILLING TO PROTECT IT IF RUSSIA GOES DEEP INTO THE EASTERN PART OF UKRAINE AND OVER THROWS THE NEW UKRAINE GOVERNMENT.WE WILL SEE WHAT HAPPENS AT 10PM TONIGHT.IT SEEMS RUSSIA CLAIMES THAT THE EX UKRAINE LEADER YUSHYNKO GAVE HIM PERMISSION TO PUT TROOPS IN THE CRIMEA AND ALL OF UKRAINE TO PROTECT ALL THE RUSSIAN SPEAKING CITIZENS.IT SEEMS THE REDERIC STARTED FROM THE UKRAINE - THE FACIST,ANTISEMITES ON THE LEFT THAT SUPPORT RUSSIA BUT WERE IN THE KIEV PARLIAMANT.THIS DEFINATELY IS GETTING INTERESTING.
THE RUSSIA - UKRAINE SITUATION AT 6:20PM MAR 3,14
ITS BELIEVED THAT THE ULTIMATIUM WILL START IN SEVASTOPOL WERE THE BLACK SEA FLEET WILL OVERTAKE THE ARMY BASES.BUT AS OF 6:05PM REPORTS SAY ITS A RELAXED SITUATION IN THE CITY THATS SUPPOSE TO BE RUSSIAN SQUASHED OF THEIR ARMY BASES.
BARBRA STARR IS REPORTING THAT AMERICA WILL SEND A WARSHIP NEAR THE UKRAINE IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS-TO QUOTE - THAT AMERICA HAD PLANNED FOR MONTHS.BUT OVIOUSLY IT WILL BE A SO CALLED THREAT TO RUSSIA.WHICH WILL NOT WORK UNTILL THEY BOMB SOME OF RUSSIAS BLACK SEA FLEET.THEN THE WAR WILL BE ON.BUT IF AMERICA TRYS TO SEND A MESSAGE TO RUSSIA WITHOUT ACTION-THEIR JUST WAISTING THEIR GAS MONEY.ITS ALSO SAID THAT RUSSIA IS SETTING UP REFUGEE CAMPS ALONG THE UKRAINE BORDER.I WONDER WHY THEY WOULD DO THAT-UNLESS THERE EXPECTING CITIZENS TO FLEE FROM EASTERN UKRAINE TO THE RUSSIA BORDER IN SCORES.IF THEY (RUSSIA) TAKE OVER THE EASTERN PARTS OF THE UKRAINE.
THE RUSSIA - UKRAINE SITUATION AT 6:50PM MAR 3,14
IT IS BELIEVED BY REPORTS THAT OBAMA AND HIS CO HORTS AT THE WHITEHOUSE ARE FERVERENTLY WRITTING UP ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL SANCTIONS AGAINST RUSSIA SINCE THEY WILL NOT BE PUTTING TROOPS IN THE UKRAINE.OBAMA WILL PROBABLY FUNNEL CASH THREW THE IMF AND THE BANK FOR INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS TO THE CURRENT UKRAINE GOVERNMENT TO BYPASS RUSSIA AND PUTINS CRIMEA GOVERNMENT.THEN PROBABLY THE IMF WILL DEMAND THE CRIMEA GOVERNMENT TO GIVE CASH TO THEM TO GIVE TO THE EASTERN GOVERNMENT WHO OBAMA FUNNELED MILLIONS TO THREW THE BANK FOR INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS IN TURN TO THE IMF AND THEN IN TURN TO THE SO CALLED DEMOCRATIC NEW GOVERNMENT JUST A WEEK OLD IN THE KIEV PARLIAMANT. AFTER ALL THE CURRENT LEADER OF THE KIEV PARLIAMANT IS A FORMER CENTRAL BANKER.SO IT JUST MAKES SENSE THAT THE BIS WILL FUNNEL FUNDS TO HIM THREW THE IMF TO MAKE IT LOOK LIKE A LEGITIMATE TRANSACTION OR LOAN.SO THIS NEW KIEV PARLIAMANT HAS LOTS OF CASH TO WORK WITH SINCE THE COUNTRY IS PRACTICALLY BANKRUPT BECAUSE OF THE BILIONS STOLEN AND IN RUSSIA NOW BY VIKTOR YANUKOVYCH.
Newly appointed Prime Minister of Ukraine and former central banker Arseniy Yatsenyuk
A reshuffled Ukrainian Parliament installed following a coup last week has voted to appoint Arseniy Yatsenyuk as the new prime minister of the country. Yats, as Victoria Nuland, the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the U.S. State Department, called him, is a natural choice. He is a millionaire former banker who served as economy minister, foreign minister and parliamentary speaker before Yanukovych took office in 2010. He is a member of Yulie Tymoshenko’s Fatherland Party. Prior to the revolution cooked up by the State Department and executed by ultra-nationalist street thugs, Tymoshenko was incarcerated for embezzlement and other crimes against the people of Ukraine. Now she will be part of the installed government, same as she was after the last orchestrated coup, the Orange Revolution.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0xMtXOilWY
Dismissing sanctions threat, Russia tightens grip over Crimea
Fears that Moscow will send more troops into strategic Black Sea region intensify
March 3, 2014, 1:51 pm
0-The Times of Israel
KERCH, Ukraine (AP) —
Pro-Russian troops controlled a ferry terminal on the easternmost tip of
Ukraine’s Crimea region close to Russia on Monday, intensifying fears
that Moscow will send even more troops into the strategic Black Sea
region in its tense dispute with its Slavic neighbor.Ukraine’s
prime minister called on the West for political and economic support
and said Crimea remained part of his country — but conceded there were
“for today, no military options on the table.”The seizure of the terminal in the Ukrainian
city of Kerch about 20 kilometers (12 miles) by boat to Russia, comes as
the US and European governments try to figure out ways to halt and
reverse the Russian incursion.Early on Monday, soldiers were operating the
terminal, which serves as a common departure point for many
Russian-bound ships. The men refused to identify themselves, but they
spoke Russian and the vehicles transporting them had Russian license
plates.Russia has taken effective control of the
Crimean peninsula without firing a shot. Now, the fears in the Ukrainian
capital and beyond are that that Russia might seek to expand its
control by seizing other parts of eastern Ukraine. Senior Obama
administration officials said the U.S. now believes that Russia has
complete operational control of Crimea, a pro-Russian area of the
country, and has more than 6,000 troops in the region.Ukrainian border guards reported Russian troops and military planes flowing into Crimea on Monday.
Over the last 24 hours, 10 Russian combat
helicopters and eight military cargo planes have landed on the
flashpoint Black Sea peninsula, the guards said in a statement, while
four Russian warships have been in the port of Sevastopol since
Saturday.Kiev received no warning regarding the troop
movements, even though that is required by the international laws
regarding the stationing of Russia’s Black Sea navy in Crimea.
Russian fighter jets also violated Ukrainian
airspace during the night, Reuters reported, citing the Russian Interfax
news agency. The report said Ukraine scrambled its own fighter jets.Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk
insisted that Crimea remains Ukrainian territory despite the presence of
Russian military.
“Any attempt of Russia to grab Crimea will
have no success at all. Give us some time,” he said at a news conference
with British Foreign Secretary William Hague, who is visiting Kiev.“For today, no military options (are) on the
table,” he said, adding that what they urgently need is an economic and
political support.
“Real support. Tangible support. And we do believe that our Western partners will provide this support,” he said.Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who
address the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday, harshly
criticized threats of “sanctions and boycotts” over his country’s role
in the spiraling crisis in Ukraine, AFP reported.“Those who try to interpret the situation as a
type of aggression and threaten sanctions and boycotts, are the same
who consistently have encouraged (Ukrainians to) refuse dialogue and
have ultimately polarized Ukrainian society,” he said.Tension between Ukraine and Moscow rose
sharply after Ukraine’s pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was
pushed out by a protest movement among people who wanted closer ties
with the European Union. Yanukovych fled to Russia after more than 80
demonstrators were killed near Kiev’s central square. He says he is
still president. Since then, troops that Ukraine says are Russian
soldiers have moved into Crimea, patrolling airport, smashing equipment
at an airbase and besieging Ukrainian military installations.Outrage over Russia’s military moves has
mounted in world capitals, with US Secretary of State John Kerry calling
on President Vladimir Putin to pull back from “an incredible act of
aggression.” Kerry is to travel to Ukraine on Tuesday.British Foreign Secretary Hague laid a bouquet
of flowers on Kiev’s Independence Square where the slain demonstrators
are being commemorated. Hague said it was urgent to get Russia and
Ukraine “in direct communication with each other.”Hague said on the BBC that Moscow would face “significant costs” for taking control of Crimea.
“If Russia continues on this course we have to
be clear this is not an acceptable way to conduct international
relations,” Hague said. “There are things that we can do about it and
must do about it.”He suggested economic sanctions were possible.
“The world cannot just allow this to happen,” he said. But he ruled out
any military action.So far, Ukraine’s new government and the West have appeared powerless to counter Russia’s tactics.Putin has defied calls from the West to pull
back his troops, insisting that Russia has a right to protect its
interests and those of Russian-speakers in Crimea and elsewhere in
Ukraine. His confidence is matched by the knowledge that Ukraine’s 46
million people have divided loyalties. While much of western Ukraine
wants closer ties with the 28-nation European Union, its eastern and
southern regions like Crimea look to Russia for support.Faced with the Russian threat, Ukraine’s new
government has moved to consolidate its authority, naming new regional
governors in the pro-Russia east, enlisting the support of the country’s
wealthy businessmen and dismissing the head of the country’s navy after
he declared allegiance to the pro-Russian government in Crimea.NATO held an emergency meeting in Brussels and
the US, France and Britain debated the possibility of boycotting the
next Group of Eight economic summit, to be held in June in Sochi, the
host of Russia’s successful Winter Olympics. On Sunday evening, the
White House issued a joint statement on behalf of the Group of Seven
saying they are suspending participation in the planning for the
upcoming summit because Russia’s advances in the Ukraine violate the
“principles and values” on which the G-7 and G-8 operate.Russia has long wanted to reclaim the lush
Crimean Peninsula, part of its territory until 1954. Russia’s Black Sea
Fleet pays Ukraine millions annually to be stationed at the Crimean port
of Sevastopol and nearly 60 percent of Crimea’s residents identify
themselves as Russian.Times of Israel staff, AFP and Associated
Press writers David McHugh in Kiev and Danica Kirka in London
contributed to this report.
By Joan Bryden, The Canadian Press | -MAR 3,14-Yahoonews
OTTAWA
- The Harper government ramped up its denunciations of Russia on
Sunday, threatening the potential for more sanctions even as it ruled
out western military intervention to force Russian troops out of
Ukraine.Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird used some of the
toughest language yet, describing Russia's incursion as "old
Soviet-style" aggression and saying President Vladimir Putin's attempts
to justify it are "absurd and ridiculous."But, while he spoke of
the possibility of further sanctions, including expelling Russia's
ambassador to Canada, he ruled out a military response to the crisis by
western nations."I don't think there's anyone talking about
western military intervention, none of our friends or allies," Baird
said Sunday in an interview with Global's West Block."What we are
doing is working together to say in no uncertain terms that this is
completely unacceptable and to condemn (it) in the strongest language
possible."That message was echoed in a statement issued late
Sunday by members of the G7, as well as the presidents of the European
Council and the European Commission.They called Russia's actions a
"clear violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of
Ukraine, in contravention of Russia’s obligations under the UN Charter
and its 1997 basing agreement with Ukraine."All vowed to
temporarily boycott preparatory meetings of ministers and officials for
the G8 summit, which is supposed to be held in June in Sochi, where the
Winter Olympic games just ended. Canada had already announced its
decision to pull out of the meetings on Saturday.Baird's own
language Sunday was harsh. He dismissed Russian arguments that it needs
to protect its Black Sea naval fleet, which is based in Sevastopol on
Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, and the Russian-speaking population in that
region."There is absolutely no justification whatsoever," Baird said."The
claims that President Putin puts forward are absurd and ridiculous. He
has no right to invade another country, a neighbouring country that's
struggling for freedom and democracy."The excuses and the
rhetoric that's coming out of Moscow are unacceptable. No one is buying
them in the western world and they make President Putin look
ridiculous."
On Saturday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that Canada is withdrawing its ambassador from Russia."Next month there's a G8 foreign ministers' meeting and if (Putin) continues with this provocative action, there's certainly no way I or Canada would want to have anything to do with Russian world leadership," Baird said.Whether the G8 leaders' summit itself goes ahead will be up to Putin, he added, stressing that Russia must be made to realize that its actions "will have a major effect on Russia's relationship, not just with Canada but the entire free and democratic world."Baird was returning Saturday from Kyiv, where he led a Canadian government delegation to show support for Ukraine's new pro-western government.In his absence, he said his deputy minister called in Russia's ambassador to Canada, Georgiy Mamedov, and reamed him out "in the strongest terms certainly in my time at Foreign Affairs."He did not rule out expelling the ambassador."We'll obviously be revisiting this on an hour by hour basis," he said, adding that Canada wants to act "in unison" with its allies.At a later news conference in Toronto, Baird did not rule out further sanctions, including freezing Russian assets, trade and investment penalties and a ban on visas.
"It's certainly something we'll consider in the next few days."NDP Leader Tom Mulcair, who was briefed by Harper on the situation Saturday, threw his whole-hearted support behind the government's response to the crisis."I think that Canada's been getting it right in terms of our very strong reaction to what the Russians have done," he told a news conference in Toronto."It's absolutely unacceptable to be violating Ukraine's sovereignty in this way and the prime minister and I have spoken and he has my full support with the steps that have been taken so far."However, two of Canada's most distinguished former diplomats dismissed the Harper government's response thus far as "bluster" and meaningless "gestures."Jeremy Kinsman, former ambassadors to Russia, Britain, Italy and the European Union, and Paul Heinbecker, former ambassador to the United Nations, were particularly critical of the government's decision to withdraw Canada's ambassador to Russia and to threaten Mamedov's expulsion. They said a crisis like this is precisely when high-level diplomatic contact should be maintained, not cut off.In an interview, Mulcair said it would be a mistake to expel Mamedov at this point."To the extent that we have to keep some channel of communication open, I think that it would be a mistake to consider expelling him at this stage with what's now happening," he told The Canadian Press.Baird significantly turned down the volume on his own rhetoric at the later news conference, adopting a more diplomatic tone. For instance, rather than repeat his assertion that Putin's explanations for the invasion are absurd and ridiculous, he said: "We just disagree in the strongest of terms with the justifications, with the so-called justifications that are being put forward."He said Canada is not currently considering expelling the Russian ambassador, stressing the need "to be careful that we take measured responses that actually will support the Ukrainian people." And he added: "Our first goal is to de-escalate the situation."On Saturday, Harper spoke with U.S. President Barack Obama and the two agreed to "co-ordinate closely" their response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Harper has also spoken to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron.On Sunday, Harper spoke to Paul Grod, president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, who is in Ukraine.A senior government official said Harper reiterated the need for Russian troops to withdraw and emphasized that Canada recognizes the legitimacy of the transitional Ukrainian government, installed after massive pro-democracy protests forced pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych to flee. Grod thanked the prime minister for Canada's leadership, the official said.Russian Prime Minister Dimitry Medvedev, however, called the new government illegitimate and warned that continued "lawlessness" in Ukraine will end in revolution and bloodshed.
In his statement Saturday, Harper said Canada also supports the United Nations sending international monitors to Ukraine and is involved in multilateral talks to put together a financial aid package for Ukraine, which is on the brink of bankruptcy.Employment Minister Jason Kenney told CTV's Question Period on Sunday that Canada has indicated "support in principle" for an International Monetary Fund aid package. He said "basic economic stability for Ukraine at this sensitive moment is critically important."Despite the sanctions, Canada does not intend to withdraw its athletes from the Paralympics, set for March 7-16 in Sochi."We don't want the athletes to pay the price for this," Baird told Global.However, he said no government representative will attend the games "to somehow glorify Russia's time in the spotlight."
___Follow @jmbryden on Twitter
Baird rules out military response to Soviet-style intervention in Ukraine
By Joan Bryden, The Canadian Press | -MAR 3,14-YahoonewsOn Saturday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that Canada is withdrawing its ambassador from Russia."Next month there's a G8 foreign ministers' meeting and if (Putin) continues with this provocative action, there's certainly no way I or Canada would want to have anything to do with Russian world leadership," Baird said.Whether the G8 leaders' summit itself goes ahead will be up to Putin, he added, stressing that Russia must be made to realize that its actions "will have a major effect on Russia's relationship, not just with Canada but the entire free and democratic world."Baird was returning Saturday from Kyiv, where he led a Canadian government delegation to show support for Ukraine's new pro-western government.In his absence, he said his deputy minister called in Russia's ambassador to Canada, Georgiy Mamedov, and reamed him out "in the strongest terms certainly in my time at Foreign Affairs."He did not rule out expelling the ambassador."We'll obviously be revisiting this on an hour by hour basis," he said, adding that Canada wants to act "in unison" with its allies.At a later news conference in Toronto, Baird did not rule out further sanctions, including freezing Russian assets, trade and investment penalties and a ban on visas.
"It's certainly something we'll consider in the next few days."NDP Leader Tom Mulcair, who was briefed by Harper on the situation Saturday, threw his whole-hearted support behind the government's response to the crisis."I think that Canada's been getting it right in terms of our very strong reaction to what the Russians have done," he told a news conference in Toronto."It's absolutely unacceptable to be violating Ukraine's sovereignty in this way and the prime minister and I have spoken and he has my full support with the steps that have been taken so far."However, two of Canada's most distinguished former diplomats dismissed the Harper government's response thus far as "bluster" and meaningless "gestures."Jeremy Kinsman, former ambassadors to Russia, Britain, Italy and the European Union, and Paul Heinbecker, former ambassador to the United Nations, were particularly critical of the government's decision to withdraw Canada's ambassador to Russia and to threaten Mamedov's expulsion. They said a crisis like this is precisely when high-level diplomatic contact should be maintained, not cut off.In an interview, Mulcair said it would be a mistake to expel Mamedov at this point."To the extent that we have to keep some channel of communication open, I think that it would be a mistake to consider expelling him at this stage with what's now happening," he told The Canadian Press.Baird significantly turned down the volume on his own rhetoric at the later news conference, adopting a more diplomatic tone. For instance, rather than repeat his assertion that Putin's explanations for the invasion are absurd and ridiculous, he said: "We just disagree in the strongest of terms with the justifications, with the so-called justifications that are being put forward."He said Canada is not currently considering expelling the Russian ambassador, stressing the need "to be careful that we take measured responses that actually will support the Ukrainian people." And he added: "Our first goal is to de-escalate the situation."On Saturday, Harper spoke with U.S. President Barack Obama and the two agreed to "co-ordinate closely" their response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Harper has also spoken to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron.On Sunday, Harper spoke to Paul Grod, president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, who is in Ukraine.A senior government official said Harper reiterated the need for Russian troops to withdraw and emphasized that Canada recognizes the legitimacy of the transitional Ukrainian government, installed after massive pro-democracy protests forced pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych to flee. Grod thanked the prime minister for Canada's leadership, the official said.Russian Prime Minister Dimitry Medvedev, however, called the new government illegitimate and warned that continued "lawlessness" in Ukraine will end in revolution and bloodshed.
In his statement Saturday, Harper said Canada also supports the United Nations sending international monitors to Ukraine and is involved in multilateral talks to put together a financial aid package for Ukraine, which is on the brink of bankruptcy.Employment Minister Jason Kenney told CTV's Question Period on Sunday that Canada has indicated "support in principle" for an International Monetary Fund aid package. He said "basic economic stability for Ukraine at this sensitive moment is critically important."Despite the sanctions, Canada does not intend to withdraw its athletes from the Paralympics, set for March 7-16 in Sochi."We don't want the athletes to pay the price for this," Baird told Global.However, he said no government representative will attend the games "to somehow glorify Russia's time in the spotlight."
___Follow @jmbryden on Twitter
As Ukraine Battle Boils, Russia's Gazprom Reconsiders Gas Deal-FORBES MAR 3,14
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev warned this week that the current political crisis in Ukraine meant a nearly 45% cut on natural gas from Russia would be reconsidered. And over the weekend, Gazprom, Russia’s state owned natural gas giant, said it is considering canceling the steep discount. Such a reversal of fortunes for Ukraine would increase its ballooning government debt, and nearly double the price of fuel.Ukraine is currently in the midst of rebuilding its government following the ouster of president Viktor Yanukovych last week. The country’s infighting is largely over a European trade deal that Yanukovych rejected to appease the Russians. In turn, the Russian government gave Ukraine a major haircut on natural gas prices.The country now has at least $1.55 billion in arrears on payments for natural gas deliveries, which Gazprom said on Saturday may force it to cancel the deal it made in December.Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov told RIA Novosti that although relations with Ukraine remained good and that gas for onward delivery was being delivered as promised, payments were not being made.“What is owed is huge, not just for last year, but also debts for current deliveries,” he told the newswire.Ukraine’s national gas company, Naftogaz Ukrainy, recently paid Gazprom $1.3 billion for natural gas delivered last year. According to RIA Novosti, Ukraine asked to postpone further payments until April 15. Gazprom said that Ukrainian’s debt for 2013 natural gas deliveries stood at $2.6 billion.Naftogaz was originally paying over $400 per thousand cubic meters for Russian gas, but once Yanukovych leaned towards Moscow instead of Brussels, the price was reduced to $268.50 and came with a $15 billion aid package as a Christmas present for the pro-Russian Ukrainian.Medvedev said this week that the aid package will remain, but that the gas deal would definitely be revisited.Ukraine’s new interim government, led by Washington favorite Arseniy Yatsenyuk, also reiterated this week that the country needed around $30 billion to keep its finances in tact over the next two years. The country is seeking a loan from the International Monetary Fund, E.U. and United States.Meanwhile, the country remains in a tug of war, with pro-Russian factions on one side, and pro-Western on the other.Washington warned Russia on Friday not to inflame the situation in Ukraine, but Gazprom is clearly ignoring them. The U.S. has raised questions over Russian armored vehicles and personnel in Crimea, a peninsula in the Black Sea that is home to a Russian Navy base.
A Cold War reprise as US seeks Moscow's isolation-Associated Press
By LARA JAKES 3 hours ago-MAR 3,14-Yahoonews
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a sudden reprise of Cold War sensibilities, the U.S. and its allies are weighing sanctions on Moscow and whether to bolster defenses in Europe in response to Russia's military advances on Ukraine. Secretary of State John Kerry, soon on his way to Ukraine's capital, said world leaders "are prepared to go to the hilt in order to isolate Russia with respect to this invasion."Much as when superpower tensions ruled world affairs, missile defense systems and troop levels in Europe have again become urgent questions in Washington and beyond, a renewed reality that may force President Barack Obama's administration to give up its intended foreign policy shift to Asia indefinitely.Also echoing the era of East-West confrontation, there appears to be little if any taste in the West for a direct military response to Russia's provocation.Russian President Vladimir Putin gave no indication that he would heed the West's warnings. Hundreds of armed men surrounded a Ukrainian military base in Crimea, a pro-Russian area. In Kiev, Ukraine's capital, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk alerted allies that "we are on the brink of disaster."Senior Obama administration officials said they believe Russia now has complete operational control over Crimea and has more than 6,000 forces in the region. The U.S. was also watching for ethnic skirmishes in other areas of eastern Ukraine, though the officials said they had not yet seen Russian military moves elsewhere. The officials were not authorized to publicly discuss the situation and spoke on condition of anonymity.Kerry said he has consulted other world leaders and all are committed to doing what is necessary to isolate Russia diplomatically. President Barack Obama spoke Sunday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski.Kerry planned to travel to Kiev on Tuesday for meetings with the Ukrainian government. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said the United States is ready to work with other countries and the International Monetary Fund to provide support for Ukraine's economy.In Brussels, NATO's secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said Russia's actions have violated a U.N. charter. He said the alliance was re-evaluating its relationship with Russia."There are very serious repercussions that can flow out of this," Kerry said.Beyond economic sanctions and visa bans, freezing Russian assets, and trade and investment penalties, Kerry said Moscow risks being booted out of the powerful Group of Eight group of world powers as payback for the military incursion.Several U.S. senators also called for bolstered missile defense systems based in Poland and the Czech
Raw: Pro-Russia Protest in Ukraine Turns Bloody
Russia is "going to be inviting major difficulties for the long term," said Kerry. "The people of Ukraine will not sit still for this. They know how to fight."Still, it was clear that few in the West were prepared to respond immediately to Putin with military force.At the Vatican, Pope Francis used his traditional Sunday midday appearance in St. Peter's Square to urge world leaders to promote dialogue as a way of resolving the crisis in Ukraine.Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., discussing the potential of U.S. military strikes against Russian troops in Crimea, said, "I don't think anyone is advocating for that." One of the administration officials indicated that the U.S. was not weighing military action to counter Russia's advances, saying the Obama administration's efforts were focused on political, economic and diplomatic options.Rubio and fellow GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said the Obama administration should return to plans it abandoned in 2009 to place long-range missile interceptors and radar in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Pro-EU Ukrainians protest
Russia believed the program was aimed at countering its own missiles and undermining its nuclear deterrent. The White House denied that and has worked instead to place medium-range interceptors in Poland and Romania — aimed at stopping missiles from Iran and North Korea.Experts said potential U.S. budget cuts to Army units based in Germany also could be slowed, or scrapped completely, to prevent a catastrophic erosion of stability and democracy from creeping across Europe.The Pentagon is considering new reductions to Army units in Germany that already have been slashed under Obama. Currently, there are two Army brigades — up to 10,000 soldiers — based in Germany, where armored and infantry units have dug in since World War II. At the end of the Cold War, more than 200,000 American forces were stationed across Europe.Damon Wilson, an Eastern European scholar, former diplomat and executive vice president of the Washington-based Atlantic Council think tank, said the U.S. must be ready to pour its efforts into Ukraine, even at the cost of policies and priorities elsewhere."We should be no longer deluded by the fact that Europe is a safe spot of stability and security, and not a security risk for the U.S.," Wilson said Sunday. He said that if Putin goes unchecked, it could result in war — the second one on NATO's borders.The 3-year-old civil war in Syria is already a crisis for neighboring Turkey, a NATO member state. Ukraine is not a NATO member, but it borders four nations that are — Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania.Russia has made clear it is ready to provide weapons and military equipment to governments across the Mideast that have irked Washington. Russia's permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council gives it veto power over major world deliberations."The challenge is, we do need to have some kind of working relationship with Russia?" Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., asked Sunday. "And while we can impose these costs and take these steps, we've got to be mindful of the fact that they can impose their own costs on us."Kerry appeared Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation," ABC's "This Week" and NBC's "Meet the Press." Rubio was on NBC, while Graham and Schiff were interviewed on CNN.___AP White House Correspondent Julie Pace contributed to this report.___Follow Lara Jakes on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/larajakesAP
State-run Russian oil behemoth Rosneft helps Vladimir Putin tighten his economic grip-Russia's President Vladimir Putin visits a refinery of Russian oil giant Rosneft in the Black Sea port of Tuapse with Rosneft chief executive Igor Sechin (left). A loyalist with a nostalgia for Russia’s not-too-distant past, Sechin turned the state-run firm into a leviathan.By Irina Reznik, Stephen Bierman and Henry Meyer,FEB 7,2014-Washington Post
When Igor Sechin was working as President Vladimir Putin’s deputy chief of staff a decade ago, visitors to his Kremlin office noticed an unusual collection on the bookshelves: row after row of bound volumes containing minutes of Communist Party congresses.The record stretched across the history of the party and its socialist predecessor — from the first meeting in March 1898 to the last one in July 1990, a year and a half before the Soviet Union collapsed.Sechin perused the documents and took notes, says Dmitry Skarga, who at the time was chief executive of Russia’s largest shipping company, OAO Sovcomflot.“He was drinking from this fountain of sacred knowledge so that Russia could restore its superpower status and take its rightful place in the world,” Skarga says.Sechin’s back-to-the-future fascination with his country’s communist past is something he shares with Putin, who, soon after coming to power in 1999, restored the music (though not the lyrics) of the Soviet-era national anthem and later described the collapse of the U.S.S.R. as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.Sechin is an open admirer of socialist icons such as Cuba’s ailing Fidel Castro, the late anti-U.S. Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez and the executed Argentine Marxist Che Guevara, says Victor Mashendzhinov, who studied with Sechin at college. As a young man, Sechin served alongside Cuban fighters in the Cold War hot spots of Angola and Mozambique.
Sechin, 53, has put his careful study of Communist-era documents into practice at state-run OAO Rosneft, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company by output and reserves. During a decade at Rosneft, Sechin has turned it into something resembling in size the gargantuan Soviet Union ministry that was once in charge of oil production, mainly by swallowing up rivals.Beginning in 2004, when Putin appointed him Rosneft’s chairman, Sechin arranged Rosneft’s takeover of the main assets of Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Yukos Oil, according to Khodorkovsky and former Yukos managers. Yukos was Russia’s largest crude producer at the time. Last year, having become Rosneft’s chief executive in May 2012, he orchestrated the company’s $55 billion purchase of TNK-BP, a BP joint oil venture in Russia.Sechin is the leading exponent of Putin’s stated determination to restore the state’s role in the Russian economy. Putin used Rosneft, through its acquisitions, to return Russian oil to state control. The company, 69.5 percent government owned, controls about 40 percent of Russia’s crude output.In a similar vein, Putin reestablished majority state control of natural-gas-exporting behemoth OAO Gazprom. The company had been privatized in the mid-1990s under his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, cutting the government’s stake to 41 percent.To develop high-tech industries such as armaments and pharmaceuticals, Putin created Rostec, a state corporation that encompasses 663 companies employing 900,000 people, or 1.2 percent of the entire Russian workforce. He expanded state-run banks OAO Sberbank and VTB Group, whose dominance in retail banking has edged out foreign rivals such as HSBC and Barclays.Sechin declined requests to be interviewed. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “Sechin is a believer in the role of the state in his economic philosophy while at the same time not excluding a free-market approach.”Of Putin’s relationship with Rosneft, Peskov said, “The president can’t get involved in the affairs of a company.”Even as Putin, 61, stages the world’s most expensive Olympics, the $48 billion Winter Games in Sochi, to showcase the glories of present-day Russia, he has spent his time in office reshaping the economy to resemble the country’s Soviet past.After Rosneft’s March acquisition of TNK-BP, state-owned enterprises accounted for more than 50 percent of Russia’s gross domestic product, up from 30 percent in 1999, according to data published by BNP Paribas SA’s Moscow unit and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).Russia’s economy grew 1.4 percent last year — the slowest expansion since the 2009 recession. The government projects growth will average 2.5 percent a year through 2030, compared with 7 percent annually from 2000 to 2008.
Competitive realities
“Under Putin’s rule in Russia, the state is monopolizing key branches of the economy,” says Anders Aslund, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Aslund was an economic adviser to Yeltsin in the 1990s, when the government carried out a wave of sell-offs of state assets that put 70 percent of the economy in private hands.“Incredibly, Putin seems oblivious both to the collapse of the Soviet Union’s economic system and why it happened,” Aslund says. “Half of the economy is controlled by state companies, and that is why the Russian economy isn’t growing.”
Such criticism ignores competitive realities, Peskov says.
“For example, in shipbuilding it’s absolutely pointless to carry out privatization,” he says. “You can privatize enterprises, but they won’t be competitive; they will be doomed to failure. So consolidating the assets under the state’s wing is the only way to preserve key sectors of the economy.”Putin has said Russia stacks up favorably with many European countries on some key economic indicators. For example, Russia’s jobless rate for November was 5.4 percent, compared with 11.1 percent in the euro zone.“The economy is in much better shape than in a number of European countries,” Peskov says.In furthering Putin’s mission, Sechin is more than just a loyal underling to the president, says Khodorkovsky, who accuses Sechin of orchestrating the destruction of Yukos. In December, Putin showed he’s confident enough in the economic change he’s wrought to free Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man and Putin’s most powerful rival.Khodorkovsky, who was imprisoned in 2003 on tax-evasion and fraud charges, spent 10 years in prison camps. He says Sechin has helped to shape as well as execute Putin’s economic policies.“Sechin is a real oligarch, in the classic meaning of this word,” Khodorkovsky said in Berlin on his fourth day of freedom. “He convinced Putin that state capitalism is right and is realizing this idea in practice.”Putin, a onetime KGB colonel, maintains his tight grip on the economy by drawing on Sechin and other members of his inner circle to ensure that loyal allies direct the country’s industrial strongholds and revenue flows. Sechin, like Putin, is a St. Petersburg native and worked for Putin in the 1990s.Like Sechin, Putin’s favored few are men who were associated with him before he became president. They include the chief executives of Gazprom, Sberbank, Rostec and monopoly rail operator OAO Russian Railways. Gazprom, Rosneft and Sberbank are now the country’s three largest companies by market capitalization.
‘Necessary role’
Despite his relatively low profile internationally, Sechin looms large at home.“Sechin is easily the most influential person in the country after Putin,” says Sergei Markov, a political analyst at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics in Moscow. “Putin trusts him more than anyone else.”
Having Sechin in control at Rosneft reflects Putin’s commitment to large government-run corporations.“The experience of successful economic modernization of countries such as South Korea and China shows that the state has a necessary role to play,” Putin said in a 2012 campaign manifesto. “Large private capital willingly doesn’t want to go into new areas, because it doesn’t want to carry major risks.”Lately, that private capital has been flowing away from Russia. Concerns about Putin’s treatment of Khodorkovsky and what it said about doing business in Russia encouraged investors to pull $420.6 billion out of the country from 2008 to the end of last year, according to the central bank — a trend the government has said it wants to reverse.Khodorkovsky’s release from prison won’t be enough to allay the concerns of foreign investors, said Alexander Kliment and Yael Levine of Eurasia Group, a political-risk research firm. His release, they say, was a public-relations stunt ahead of the Sochi Olympics.The key drag on the economy is corruption, much of it concentrated in the state sector, says Elena Panfilova, head of Berlin-based Transparency International’s Russia branch. Russia was ranked the most corrupt nation among the Group of 20 advanced economies in the organization’s 2013 Corruption Perceptions Index.Another hindrance is the fact that state-run companies face no incentive to cut costs and eliminate waste, because non-state shareholders are in a minority, says Mattias Westman, chief executive of Prosperity Capital Management, the largest Russia-focused equity investor, which manages about $4 billion in Russia and other former Soviet countries.
Perilously dependent
Largely thanks to Rosneft and Gazprom, Russia — with a population of 143 million — is the world’s largest energy exporter by barrels of oil equivalent a day and the biggest crude producer after Saudi Arabia. The government receives about half of its budget revenue from oil and gas exports.The EBRD said in December 2012 that Russia has become perilously dependent on commodities and is failing to prepare for falling oil output in 20 years. Lev Snykov, a partner at Greenwich Capital in Moscow, says the price needs to be at $120 a barrel or higher for the government to balance the budget. The price of Brent crude was $107.23 on Jan. 29.When Sechin became chief of Rosneft, he had been deeply involved in the company. As chairman beginning in 2004, he had a decisive say in strategic decisions because of his unrivaled access to the president, according to Vladimir Milov, who was deputy energy minister in 2002.As a boss, Sechin displayed a ruthless streak, Milov says. In 2010, he initiated the sacking of chief executive Sergei Bogdanchikov, a lifelong oilman who had kept Rosneft afloat through the volatile economic times of the late 1990s, Milov says.While serving as Rosneft chairman, Sechin was also appointed deputy prime minister with responsibility for the energy sector in 2008. He held the Rosneft position until 2011.He was the most effective bureaucrat in the government, says former central bank first deputy chairman Sergei Aleksashenko.“From the point of view of bureaucratic management, he was simply amazing,” says Aleksashenko, director of macroeconomic research at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. “He worked like a machine.”Under Sechin, Rosneft has grown into a leviathan. From 2010 through 2013, its annual revenue increased 128 percent to an estimated $143.6 billion.Its oil and gas output of 4.88 million barrels a day as of the end of the third quarter of 2013 was greater than Exxon Mobil’s 4.02 million and PetroChina’s 3.8 million; its proven oil and gas reserves, including TNK-BP, rose to 29.6 billion barrels at the end of 2012, above Exxon’s (25 billion) and PetroChina’s (23 billion).The company posted an eightfold rise in third-quarter profit in 2013, after recording a $4.98 billion gain on the value of TNK-BP. Sechin clinched his latest deal Dec. 20 — the day of Khodorkovsky’s release — with the acquisition of Morgan Stanley’s global oil-trading and transport business for an undisclosed sum.
Sechin has also presided over a $270 billion supply deal signed in June that will make China Russia’s largest crude customer during the coming decade.Compared with non-state-owned energy giants such as Exxon, Rosneft is inefficient. Even though Rosneft’s lifting costs — the cost of getting oil out of the ground — are less than a third of Exxon’s, the Russian company’s workforce is less productive.Net profit per employee at Rosneft was $70,815 in 2012, vs. $620,026 for Exxon. Rosneft’s price-to-earnings ratio was 5.4, compared with Exxon’s 13.2 as of Jan. 13. Rosneft shares fell 6.87 percent in 2013, while Exxon shares rose 16.93 percent.“The main reason to hold Rosneft is the reserves,” Greenwich Capital’s Snykov says.In college, Sechin pored over Marxist-Leninist texts and could cite from memory biographical details of Communist leaders through the decades, recalls Larisa Volodimerova, a fellow student.After graduating in 1984 with a PhD in economics and being fluent in Portuguese and French, Sechin joined the Soviet Army and served as a translator in Portuguese-speaking Mozambique and Angola, where Soviet- and U.S.-backed factions competed for dominance during the final decades of the Cold War.When Putin went to Moscow in 1996 to work as a senior Kremlin official under Yeltsin, Sechin followed as a lower-ranking bureaucrat in the presidential administration. When Putin became president in 2000, Sechin spent eight years as his deputy chief of staff.Constitutionally barred from serving more than two consecutive terms as president, Putin bided his time for four years as prime minister and installed Sechin as deputy prime minister while Dmitry Medvedev sat in as head of state. When Putin reclaimed the presidency in 2012, he appointed Sechin as chief of Rosneft.In acquiring first Yukos and then TNK-BP from BP and its billionaire partners in March, Rosneft gained control of companies that had pioneered the use of Western technology and management in Russia.Yukos hired foreign executives such as Bruce Misamore, who made it the first Russian company to switch to quarterly financial reporting under U.S. accounting standards. Yukos also introduced drilling techniques to bolster crude output, which declined in the 1990s.BP set up TNK-BP in 2003 with Putin’s blessing. While the new company paid $19 billion in dividends to BP from its inception, according to BP’s 2012 annual report, infighting between the Russian and British partners eventually led to last year’s takeover.Under that deal, BP has a 19.75 percent stake in Rosneft and BP chief Bob Dudley occupies one of two seats BP will eventually be entitled to on Rosneft’s nine-person board of directors. Former Exxon senior vice president Donald Humphreys and former Morgan Stanley chief executive John Mack are among the four independent board members.TNK-BP increased production by more than 40 percent during the nine years before Rosneft bought it.“The concern is, will Rosneft be able to achieve that same level of operating efficiency as TNK-BP did before it was acquired?” says Rob West, an oil analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.Rosneft is also shouldering huge debts, says Tatiana Mitrova, of the Energy Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Following the TNK-BP deal, the company’s debt more than doubled, to $72 billion.To ease financial pressures, Rosneft has drawn down the first tranche of up to $70 billion in advance payments from China National Petroleum in exchange for supplies.In October, Rosneft separately signed a provisional $85 billion agreement to supply China Petrochemical with 100 million metric tons of crude over 10 years. The agreement may restrict Rosneft’s ability to supply other customers at potentially higher prices, West says.Sechin is a go-to man, says Sovcomflot’s ex-head Skarga.“The richer Rosneft becomes, the more his influence grows,” Skarga says.Unlike Russians who accumulated vast wealth during the privatization of state industries, Sechin isn’t preoccupied with money, he says. “He doesn’t have any billions,” he says.
What Sechin does have, Skarga says, is power. He will have it as long as Putin does, says Masha Lipman, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center.Sechin has his eyes on a post-communist breakthrough: In a Jan. 9 research note, Sberbank said Russian oil output will probably approach the Soviet-era peak of 11.4 million barrels a day by 2016 or 2017.“It would be a very big psychological milestone for Russia to get back to the Soviet-era peak production,” says Julian Lee, a senior analyst at the Center for Global Energy Studies.The full version of this Bloomberg Markets article appears in the magazine’s March issue.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/state-run-russian-oil-behemoth-rosneft-helps-vladimir-putin-tighten-his-economic-grip/2014/02/07/c725a702-8d06-11e3-95dd-36ff657a4dae_story.html
