Translated material
The cost of war in Ukraine. Online December 16
The Bell continues to conduct online, dedicated to the economic consequences of the war in Ukraine, which began on February 24.
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21:45 The Ministry of Justice has updated the register of foreign agents. It included:
- Journalists Yulia Taratuta and Dmitry Lyubimov;
- Environmental organizations Sakhalin Environmental Watch and the Center for the Conservation and Study of Salmon Species and Their Habitats;
- Samara public organization LGBT + "Irida";
- Ivan Tyutrin, co-founder of the Free Russia Forum, and Dmitry Davydov, author of the 20 Ideas for the Development of Russia project;
- ex-deputy of the municipal district Dvortsovy in St. Petersburg Natalya Gryaznevich.
20:59 The EU has published the ninth package of sanctions against Russia. In addition to the RRDB bank, which was previously known , the list included MCB and the Far East Bank.
Under personal sanctions, in particular, senators and deputies fell, including Elena Drapeko and Valentina Tereshkova, Deputy Prime Ministers Victoria Abramchenko and Tatyana Golikova, Ministers of Communications Maksut Shadayev, Education Sergey Kravtsov, head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Alexander Kurenkov, seven governors and other officials.
20:47 Whoosh shares fell 15% on Friday, the third day after the IPO. At the moment, the company's quotes fell by 25%.
15:53 The EU adopted the ninth package of sanctions against Russia. Today they will be published in the official journal of the EU (so far they are not there) and will come into force.
As expected, the sanctions include a complete ban on the export of any aircraft engines and components to Russia, sanctions against the RRDB Bank, four TV channels (NTV, Russia 1, Ren TV and Channel One) and "a large number of individuals and organizations." It also confirmed the possibility of transactions with companies exporting grain and fertilizers, even if their owners are under sanctions, provided that the companies played a “significant role” in the market before the sanctions.
15:37 The Ministry of Digital Development wants to oblige Apple to allow installation from app stores that are alternative to the AppStore and intends to introduce a bill at the beginning of 2023. The Russian ministry refers to the Digital Markets Act (DMA) adopted by the EU, which opens up the installation of applications from third-party sources and access to some system functions.
14:51 The Moscow division of the Chinese social network TikTok confirmed the reduction of most of its employees - about 500 people. the reduction was the first to report The Cherta Telegram channel , explaining it by the termination of advertising revenues with the start of the war. So far, no employees have been fired as the company hoped the war would end quickly, the channel claims.
The work of TikTok in Russia after February is the subject of a large investigation by The Bell. It turned out that the Chinese social network isolated the Russian segment, after which pro-war propaganda flourished in it, for which separate agencies holding special Tiktok houses are responsible.
13:32 The Bank of Russia, as expected, kept its key rate at 7.5% per annum.
- Pro-inflationary risks have grown and prevail over disinflationary ones.
- In the event of further expansion of the budget deficit, a tighter monetary policy may be required.
- In November, inflation was 12% in annual terms after 12.6% in October. As of December 12, annual inflation increased to 12.7%, taking into account the indexation of housing and communal services tariffs.
- According to the Central Bank’s forecast, taking into account the ongoing monetary policy, annual inflation will decrease to 5-7% in 2023 and return to 4% in 2024.
- The next rate meeting is February 10, 2023.
12:54 on the DneproGES appeared on the network Footage of attacks . According to unconfirmed reports, one of the hits fell on the engine room. The command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported more than 60 missiles flying over the territory of Ukraine.
12:12 Russia allows oil to be delivered to India at a price below the price ceiling, while tankers retain Western insurance, writes the Financial Times. At least seven tankers have been loaded with Russian oil since the introduction of the $60 per barrel ceiling, and in one case the newspaper was able to confirm that counterparties had written an oil ceiling in the documents.
Russia has repeatedly stated that it will not supply oil to countries that comply with the restrictions, but the mechanism has not yet been formalized by presidential decree. Presumably, the mention in the contracts of the ceiling as a price condition should prevent the sale of oil, but any prohibition on the transaction can be canceled by the government.
One Western official told the newspaper that so far the ceiling is working as intended.
Most likely, the price of oil in the contracts is much lower than $60 and without any ceiling. The day before, Reuters wrote that India in December bought some batches of Urals cheaper than cost (tax included). And today, the Ministry of Finance reported that the average price of Urals from November 15 to December 14 was $57.5, that is, the discount of Russian oil to Brent reached a third.
11:08 The first consequences of a new massive missile attack on Ukraine on Friday morning: without electricity Kharkiv, Dnipro, Poltava, Kremenchug, Odessa and partially Kiev (where the metro stopped), with attendant interruptions in water supply and communications. Sections of the contact network of railways have been de-energized, they are being transferred to diesel traction.
The main thing for the night and morning:
- The EU countries agreed on the eve, and today they will adopt the ninth package of sanctions against Russia. Officially, it has not yet been published, from the new sanction in it against persons involved in the seizure of Ukrainian agricultural products.
- Russia's strikes on energy infrastructure have increased Ukraine's need for Western aid by one and a half times, writes The Washington Post. Until now, Kyiv has called the amount of $55 billion for the next year, but now it is talking about an additional $2 billion per month.
- The same WP learned that Washington intends to transfer to Ukraine JDAM satellite guidance kits that turn conventional weapons into high-precision ones.
- Deliveries of laptops to Russia in January-November decreased by 65% in real terms. The market is undergoing a structural redistribution - the share of conditionally "white" brands is decreasing - HP, Acer and Apple, Lenovo is holding its positions, Chinese second-tier brands, both "old" and "new", are increasing their share.
- In Russia, there are 20-30 thousand new unsold foreign cars left - for about a month of work of car dealers, learned Izvestia . Parallel imports are still not well established and will not be able to cover demand even next year, market participants say.
- The German Henkel, which has invested heavily in Russian production for a long time, decided to leave the country according to a business spin-off scheme : Lab Industries will start operating in Russia next year. It is possible that this is a way to buy time to find an unsanctioned buyer who is ready to pay a decent price.
- The consumer spending of Russians from December 5 to 11 grew by only 4.9% yoy, writes MMI, citing Sberindex data. This is the smallest increase since the end of September.
- Twitter suspended the accounts of several well-known journalists (from the Washington Post, The New York Times, Mashable and CNN) covering the activities of the owner of the service, Elon Musk, without warning. The latter said that the accounts were spreading information about the location of his private jet in real time - "ready-made coordinates for hired killers."
- After regulators in the UK and the EU raised rates by half a point following the Fed, the markets became convinced that the fight against inflation would be a long one, and a recession almost inevitable. Given the alarming data on consumer demand in the US, all three major indexes - S&P 500, Nasdaq and Dow Jones Industrial Average - fell markedly and closed at the levels of early November.