Historic sanctions on Russia had
roots in emotional appeal from Zelensky
A video call by the Ukrainian wartime leader prompted jaded European leaders to act
Thursday night... the presidents and prime ministers quickly approved sanctions on Russian President Vladimir Putin, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and some of Russia’s biggest banks. Talk of barring Russia from the global financial messaging system known as SWIFT, however, stalled amid skepticism on the part of Scholz and the leaders of Austria, Italy and Cyprus...
Then Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky dialed into the meeting via teleconference with a bracing appeal that left some of the world-weary politicians with watery eyes. In just five minutes, Zelensky — speaking from the battlefield of Kyiv — pleaded with European leaders...
“It was extremely, extremely emotional,” said a European official briefed on the call. “He was essentially saying, ‘Look, we are here dying for European ideals.’” Before ending the video call, Zelensky told the gathering matter-of-factly that it might be the last time they saw him alive, according to a senior European official who was present.
Is "extremely, extremely emotional", and "teary-eyed" the state to be in when making what may be life-and-death decisions? It is awful of me to point this out but it is what immediately came to mind: Zelensky was an actor.
...Zelensky’s personal appeal overwhelmed the resistance from European leaders to imposing measures that could drive the Russian economy into a state of near collapse.
...
The actions culminated on Saturday, when the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union announced they would bar several major Russian banks from...SWIFT...
The unprecedented moves led Russians to crowd ATMs in a desperate bid to withdraw cash...
...and sparked a furious response from Putin, who
called them “illegitimate” and ordered his nuclear forces to a higher
state of alert.
So nuclear high alert was in response to SWIFT. Folks, did we really, unemotionally, want to do this?
The latest sanctions mean the Western allies are effectively waging financial war against Russia...
“We’re not going to fight with bullets. We’re going to choke them
financially,” said Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn
Global Forex.
That looks like a distinction that went right over Putin's head, Marc!
...even before they have taken effect, the Russian financial system is wobbling. The ruble, which already was near a historic low against the dollar, plunged in informal trading in Moscow. “The Russian ruble has been crushed and it’s going to get crushed further,” said Chandler.
Marc. Shut. The. Fuck. Up.
...Sunday, the fraying of Russian ties with the global economy accelerated. The European Union closed its airspace to Russian aircraft and announced it would fund the purchase of weapons for the first time in what European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called a “watershed moment.”
It's a fucking watershed, Ursual! Do you know what is on the other side?
The oil giant BP said it would “exit” its nearly 20 percent stake in the Russian energy company Rosneft. Two directors from BP...have resigned from the Rosneft board. FedEx and United Parcel Service also announced they have suspended shipments to Russia.
On Saturday, the credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s cut the Russian government debt rating to “junk.”...
...the Western sanctions campaign is closing like a vise on the Russian economy.
“There’ll be a huge sudden spike in the cost of living... huge change in
the availability of ...medicine and
technology, and a huge jolt to the economic power structure,” said Adam
Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
“You are essentially directing a financial crisis in another country.”
We all okay with all this hugeness? I am NOT. This is a fucking MISTAKE!
...in 2014 following the Russian takeover of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, Putin... stockpiled foreign exchange reserves and shifted away from the dollar.
It was a costly strategy. Even as the Russian central bank accumulated $630 billion in reserves, up from just $356 billion in 2015, Putin presided over average annual economic growth of just 0.8 percent. Russia sold off most of its U.S. treasury securities in recent years and bulked up on gold, which now accounts for 20 percent of its total reserves, according to the Institute for International Finance.
But Russia would need to sell that gold for dollars, euros or yen before it could use those reserves to support the ruble. And the sanctions, which Japan joined on Sunday, make that impossible. “It’s still legal tender, but you can’t spend it,” said Posen, a former member of the Bank of England’s policymaking committee.
For millions of Russians, the looming economic calamity threatens to turn the clock back. Russians have a visceral memory of the country’s 1998 financial crisis, when Moscow devalued the ruble and defaulted on its foreign debt. The economic blow wiped out the savings of millions of people.
...In an interview two years ago with the Russian state news agency Tass, Putin said that during the 2008 global financial crisis, he thought, “What I will not allow is a repeat of the 1998 situation, when all citizens completely lost their savings.”...
Russia largely doesn’t manufacture consumer products such as cars, electronics, computers and appliances, leaving consumers vulnerable to sudden price hikes as the ruble sinks.
