Russian Invasion of Ukraine

[JazzNU]

I may have misinterpreted. I took the context as criticizing the west for not actively intervening. The world has not stayed silent. What other steps can be taken to intervene without actively engaging militarily?

I'm interpreting much of the criticism similarly. The world has stayed anything but silent, and has aided in every way that they can without causing World War III. I've found many of the claims about the lack of support from the West quite startling.

[ti-amie]

Russian Billionaire Roman Abramovich to Sell Chelsea Football Club

"I do believe this is in the best interest of the club," the Russian oligarch said Wednesday as he faces landing on a sanctions list in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.
March 2, 2022 12:23pm

by Etan Vlessing

Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich has confirmed he will sell England’s Chelsea Football Club in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“As I have stated before, I have always taken decisions with the club’s best interest at heart. In the current situation, I have therefore taken the decision to sell the club, as I believe this is in the best interest of the club, the fans, the employees, as well as the club’s sponsors and partners,” Abramovich said on the Chelsea FC website on Wednesday.

The Russian owner of Chelsea has been the subject of widespread speculation that he will be slapped with sanctions by the British government for his close ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin. Chelsea as part of the British Premier League has also joined a chorus of pro sport teams that are shedding ties to Russia.

Earlier, rival Manchester United announced it has cancelled a £40 million ($53 million) sponsorship deal with the Russian airline Aeroflot. And a third premier league team, Everton F.C., on its website said it had suspended all commercial sponsorship ties to the Russian companies USM, Megafon and Yota.

“Everyone at Everton remains shocked and saddened by the appalling events unfolding in Ukraine. This tragic situation must end as soon as possible, and any further loss of life must be avoided,” Everton F.C. said in a statement.

Elsewhere, UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, said the Champions League final, the biggest match in European club soccer, will not be played in St. Petersburg, Russia after Russia was stripped of hosting duties.

Abramovich said the sale of Chelsea “will not be fast-tracked,” and that he will not ask for the repayment of loans owed to him by the team. In addition, the proceeds of club sale will go to a charitable foundation set up by Chelsea F.C.

“The foundation will be for the benefit of all victims of the war in Ukraine. This includes providing critical funds towards the urgent and immediate needs of victims, as well as supporting the long-term work of recovery,” Abramovich said in his statement.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/busin ... erm=165498

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

The reaction in some circles

[JazzNU]

[ponchi101]

Russian Billionaire Roman Abramovich to Sell Chelsea Football Club

"I do believe this is in the best interest of the club," the Russian oligarch said Wednesday as he faces landing on a sanctions list in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.
March 2, 2022 12:23pm

by Etan Vlessing

Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich has confirmed he will sell England’s Chelsea Football Club in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“As I have stated before, I have always taken decisions with the club’s best interest at heart. In the current situation, I have therefore taken the decision to sell the club, as I believe this is in the best interest of the club, the fans, the employees, as well as the club’s sponsors and partners,” Abramovich said on the Chelsea FC website on Wednesday.

The Russian owner of Chelsea has been the subject of widespread speculation that he will be slapped with sanctions by the British government for his close ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin. Chelsea as part of the British Premier League has also joined a chorus of pro sport teams that are shedding ties to Russia.

Earlier, rival Manchester United announced it has cancelled a £40 million ($53 million) sponsorship deal with the Russian airline Aeroflot. And a third premier league team, Everton F.C., on its website said it had suspended all commercial sponsorship ties to the Russian companies USM, Megafon and Yota.

“Everyone at Everton remains shocked and saddened by the appalling events unfolding in Ukraine. This tragic situation must end as soon as possible, and any further loss of life must be avoided,” Everton F.C. said in a statement.

Elsewhere, UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, said the Champions League final, the biggest match in European club soccer, will not be played in St. Petersburg, Russia after Russia was stripped of hosting duties.

Abramovich said the sale of Chelsea “will not be fast-tracked,” and that he will not ask for the repayment of loans owed to him by the team. In addition, the proceeds of club sale will go to a charitable foundation set up by Chelsea F.C.

“The foundation will be for the benefit of all victims of the war in Ukraine. This includes providing critical funds towards the urgent and immediate needs of victims, as well as supporting the long-term work of recovery,” Abramovich said in his statement.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/busin ... erm=165498

Again, I am astounded. This is as decent a move as this man can do, and an underlying tone of "Vlad, F.Y." Especially the part about donating to Ukrainian charities.

[JazzNU]

Again, I am astounded. This is as decent a move as this man can do, and an underlying tone of "Vlad, F.Y." Especially the part about donating to Ukrainian charities.

I'm not astounded by this one. It's the net proceeds, not the proceeds of the sale that he says will go to charity. Think it's likely a strategic play to offload a valuable asset and write off debt with sanctions looming. It's a good PR move, but I'll remain skeptical.

This is a Daily Mail article, so grain of salt always, but still, good background if you're not already familiar with Abramovich's dealings.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sport ... elsea.html

[JazzNU]

[ponchi101]

Two news that I am reading.
1. Russian soldiers were not told they were going to Ukraine, and their families are in the dark. Sick to the max, until you read
2. It seems that Russia's plan is to siege Ukrainian cities and starve them until they surrender.

Is this (expletive) (Vlad) frigging out of his mind? Is he medieval? How on earth do you justify that?

[the Moz]

Not long until Putin can hang the curtain(s)...

[meganfernandez]

Two news that I am reading.
1. Russian soldiers were not told they were going to Ukraine, and their families are in the dark. Sick to the max, until you read
2. It seems that Russia's plan is to siege Ukrainian cities and starve them until they surrender.

Is this (expletive) (Vlad) frigging out of his mind? Is he medieval? How on earth do you justify that?

Yes, he's out of this mind. And how do the rest of us - particularly Ukraine, but all countries who can influence world order and peace - deal with a madman? Can't rationalize with him. Shouldn't compromise on Ukraine's independence. Can't trigger a nuclear war. Thank god the US has a level-headed leader right now. But I still feel like we should do more. We're not exactly standing by, but we're likely going to watch thousands of people die whom we could have protected. In my gut, it just feels wrong. Should we just be arming Ukraine as much as possible or do they need more fighters, more expertise? They're doing an admirable job of resisting so far, but that's partly because Russia did a terrible job planning this attack. I don't think they're going to be able to defeat Russia militarily if Russia really wants to win.

[MJ2004]

Western brands flee Russia in unravelling of ‘capitalistic diplomacy’
Disney, Nike, Volkswagen and others curtail business while rouble’s plunge hits shoppers

In late 1990, a former British cabinet minister reflecting on the end of the Cold War picked an image of consumer goods companies’ inroads into the former Soviet Union to illustrate the transformations seen in what he called the “annus mirabilis”.

There had been longer queues outside the new McDonald’s in Moscow’s Pushkin Square than at Lenin’s tomb, Denis Healey marvelled in the Financial Times.

Russians’ embrace of western fast food, soft drinks and jeans brands soon came to symbolise the triumph of “capitalistic diplomacy”, Yale School of Management professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld observed this week, noting that the US Department of State had encouraged American companies to open in Moscow.

“Political scientists used to argue that no two countries with a McDonald’s would fight each other,” he recalled. Even after Yugoslavia’s bloody break-up contradicted that theory and tensions built between the west and Vladimir Putin’s regime, brands such as McDonald’s, Pepsi and Levi Strauss remained committed to Russia.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has changed that, prompting an exodus of western companies from Russia that is as sudden as their entry more than three decades ago.

ExxonMobil, BP and Shell are hurrying to offload Russian investments; Apple, Google and Facebook have curtailed their services in the country; Walt Disney and Live Nation have scrapped film launches and rock tours; and clothing brands such as H&M and Nike have followed carmakers including Volkswagen, Toyota and Mercedes-Benz in suspending deliveries or operations.

For Vladislav Zubok, a professor of Russian history at the London School of Economics, the corporate retreat marks the end of the era whose beginnings he witnessed while passing Moscow’s first McDonald’s on his way to work each day.

“It was a new smell, a new sensation — fast service, everything was clean. Moscow was incredibly colourless [under the Soviet system] and you suddenly had a small island of light, colour and efficiency in the midst of the collapsing Soviet economy,” he recalled.

The withdrawal of Western companies “will be calamitous”, he predicted, although he said the “cultural decline” that will follow will not be as great as the cultural changes that foreign companies brought 30 years ago.

This week Russian consumers were showing both their continued appetite for western brands and their recognition that these may soon be out of reach. “People have been still buying, and buying like it’s going to end tomorrow,” a Moscow-based sales assistant at re:Store, Apple’s official distributor, said on Monday before the US tech group’s announcement that it would stop supplies to Russia.

The distributor’s decision to close its stores and website came after drastic price increases that accompanied the rouble’s collapse coincided with consumers’ fears of a shortage of Apple’s devices, which a fifth of Muscovites use, according to Beeline Analytics.

“I’ve been saving and saving for a MacBook,” Larisa, a 30-year-old paediatrician, said on Wednesday. “I guess now I won’t have it. And we will all switch electronics to Xiaomi [and] we’ll all be driving Ladas,” she added, referring to the Chinese electronics company and the Russian carmaker.

Xiaomi is Russia’s second-largest supplier of smartphones after South Korea’s Samsung, according to GS Group. Samsung’s app store stopped working in Russia on Wednesday, according to media reports, and with South Korea joining the US, EU and UK in imposing sanctions on Russia, Xiaomi looks poised to claim more of the market.

The west’s largest logistics groups have slammed the brakes on international deliveries to Russia, contributing to western companies’ decisions to suspend local operations.

Germany’s DHL and Swiss freight broker Kuehne + Nagel on Wednesday followed UPS, FedEx and DPD in halting all shipments into Russia apart from foods and medicines.

Even then, the container shipping line Maersk warned on Wednesday that perishable goods could arrive damaged because of lengthy customs checks to identify sanctioned shipments.

As imports of products from clothing to Harley-Davidson motorcycles dry up, Russians also fear that extreme foreign exchange swings will make western brands that are still available unaffordable.

Alcohol imports stopped for several days after the euro rose to 90 roubles, a critical level for wine importers, according to Maxim Kashirin, the head of Simple Group, one of the country’s largest alcohol distributors. Since then, the company has raised prices by 15 per cent and warned they could go higher.

“I’d be worried about the shortage of food items, and even if not, then about food getting extremely expensive,” said Olga, a PR specialist from Moscow. “My dog eats Belgian dog food and I have not been able to buy it for days.” 

Russia is not one of the largest markets for most western brands. It represents just under 2 per cent of global sales for Nestlé, for example, whose sales of Nescafé began in the country in 1992. But for some companies, Russia was seen as a promising source of emerging market growth.

Western sanctions have killed such hopes. Their full financial impact remains unclear, but a weaker rouble and interest rates at 20 per cent will “give a big margin squeeze” in an already volatile market, said Bruno Monteyne, analyst at Bernstein.

Advisers say several multinationals are also concerned about setting precedents through their actions in Russia that may concern governments or consumers elsewhere.

Nathan Freitas, founder of the Guardian Project, a software group that supports activists and others in high-risk situations, suggested Apple did the right thing by halting iPhone sales but not disabling Russian iPhones’ access to the App Store as the Ukrainian government had requested.

“This is a new kind of war, when soldiers are posting TikToks from the battlefront and Google Maps is being used to identify where the tanks are. But you don’t want these things that were designed to serve people to be turned into weapons” by governments, he said. “I don’t think Apple needs to be a leader here. They should just take cautious, transparent steps.”

Joshua Brockwell, a director at Azzad Asset Management who is behind a shareholder resolution calling for transparency in Apple’s foreign operations, warned that asking the tech giant to target iPhone owners could precipitate the “splinternet” phenomenon of web content being siloed by country.

Blocking access to the App Store “would, in effect, be punishing the average citizen for actions taken by [their] government”, he added. “If you applied that standard to many other countries and governments around the world you could have complete chaos.”

Other companies were weighing the reputational risks of continuing to operate in Putin’s Russia against the danger of setting a precedent that could compel them to halt sales in China’s far larger market if Beijing were to invade Taiwan.

“If this were China, it would of course be very different,” said one senior adviser to VW, which pulled sales from Russia last week.

Russians are now asking which western companies will be next to leave, with several naming Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and McDonald’s among those they would miss most. The three companies did not comment when asked what their plans were for the Russian market, however.

Niklas Schaffmeister, managing partner at the brand and strategy consultancy GlobeOne in Cologne, noted the “CEO activism” trend in which executives have become more vocal on contentious issues, but said that food and consumer goods brands may be concerned that pulling out would “punish the Russian people” more than the country’s authorities.

Some industry members said such mass-market brands had far more local employees and consumers counting on them than companies that had suspended operations.

However, Yale’s Sonnenfeld said the reticence of some of the brands that were most representative of Russia’s opening to the west in the 1990s was “an incredible change in the pattern”. Consumer brands have typically led other industries in speaking out after human rights abuses in Xinjiang or racial equity protests, he noted.

“I’m astounded . . . I don’t know what they’re thinking,” Sonnenfeld said. “All I know is there’s turmoil within boards.”

There are other risks: some high-profile brands have faced furore over their responses to Russia’s invasion.

Ikea chief executive Jesper Brodin faced a backlash on social media after initially emphasising the need to “embrace togetherness and collaboration” in the region. He soon updated his LinkedIn post to add: “We don’t have all the answers and we are working around the clock to assess how we together can best continue to support and help those in need.”

Even for those multinationals that conclude they should stay in Russia, there may be flashbacks to the experience of the brands that were first into the market 30 years ago.

A shell-shocked economy and plunging currency in the early 1990s prompted the FT to write of the post-Soviet country’s most famous western entrant: “McDonald’s is going to make a mountain of rather useless roubles.”

[ti-amie]

Fascinating thread in language we can all understand from economist
Anders Åslund
@anders_aslund
Economist & author. Russia, Ukraine & Eastern Europe. Read my latest book: "Russia's Crony Capitalism" https://amzn.to/2WgLENO

Essentially, the West took down Russian finances in one day. The situation is likely to become worse than in 1998 because now there is no positive end. All Russia's capital markets appear to be wiped out & they are unlikely to return with anything less than profound reforms.

The Moscow stock markets have closed & Russian stocks are no longer traded in New York, presumably all 31 soon gone in London. The three big foreign banks in Moscow are likely to withdraw: Raiffeisen, Societe General & Unicredit: No profitable business in sight.

After Russia has fallen out of the international payments system, it is very cumbersome to sell to Russia. It is likely to be blacklisted by FATF soon. Why even try to sell there? You don't know whether you will be paid. Lots of companies stop selling to Russia.

Under these circumstances, it is pretty impossible to invest in Russia. Smaller existing investments are likely to withdraw, while BP and Shell are already withdrawing. Total might be the last to remain, but the US might impose blocking sanctions on Novatek.

Western companies have all reasons to stay away from Russia. First, they face sanctions risks, as sanctions often change suddenly. Second, they are facing credit & financial risks w/o insurance in sight. Third, they run reputational risks being involved in crime.

What will happen to the Russian economy?
1. The ruble is likely to continue collapsing. In 1998 - 75%, in 2014 -50% - at least 50% now.
2. Inflation will swing up with the collapsing ruble, perhaps to 50%, at least 20%.
3. In 2015, GDP fell by 2.5%, in 1998 by 5%, more now.

Nobody can claim that Western sanctions don't matter any longer. The critical factor is the US dollar. When enough of national financial system is excluded from the $, the national economy is toast regardless of reserves, interest rates & institutions.

Yes, the Russian economic collapse is already worse than in 1998. Then the Russian stock market fell by 94% altogether. In the last two weeks it has already fallen by 98% in London...
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via @threadreaderapp

[ti-amie]

Why he threaded the two posts is beyond me but here we are.

[ti-amie]