Translated material
The cost of war in Ukraine. Online January 2
The Bell continues to host an online video dedicated to the economic consequences of the war in Ukraine that began on February 24, 2022.
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19:08 Observers saw in the first speech of the new Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen a sign of a more pro-Russian line. He, in particular, said that under him the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would make fewer public statements on Russia and Ukraine, pursue a responsible policy in the Ukrainian direction, and Israel would continue to provide humanitarian assistance to Ukraine. On Tuesday, January 3, he intends to have a conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
16:20 The Russian Ministry of Defense named the number of those killed in the attack on the hostel in Makeevka
"The Kiev regime struck with six rockets of the US-made HIMARS multiple launch rocket system at the temporary deployment point of one of the units of the Russian armed forces in the area of the settlement of Makeyevka. Russian air defense systems shot down two HIMARS rockets. As a result of the defeat of four missiles 63 Russian servicemen were killed by a high-explosive warhead of a temporary deployment point" (quote from RIA Novosti ).
16:11 The Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region arrested the assets of the chemical concern Linde in Russia for 35 billion rubles, writes RBC.
One of the operators of the construction of a complex for processing ethane-containing gas in Ust-Luga, RusKhimAlliance, a joint venture between Gazprom and RusGazDobycha, filed a lawsuit. It initiated international arbitration proceedings in connection with Linde's failure to fulfill its obligations to build a gas processing plant. The proceedings will continue at the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre.
Linde, which produces equipment for the liquefaction and transportation of gases, as well as the gases themselves, stopped projects in Russia in March 2022. In 2021, Linde signed a major contract with Gazprom for the production of helium at the Amur GPP and the production of liquefied natural gas in Ust-Luga.
15:30 Pro-military channels and state media differed in their assessments of the prerequisites for the death of mobilized in Makiivka
There are still no official comments on the deaths of dozens or hundreds of those mobilized in vocational school No. 19 in Makeyevka. But TASS published an assessment of the prerequisites for a strike by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, citing a source in the law enforcement agencies of the DPR. “Preliminarily, the reason for the HIMARS hit was the active use of mobile phones by the arrived military personnel. The enemy, using the ECHELON reconnaissance complex, revealed the activity of cellular communications and the location of subscribers, ”the state agency quotes him.
The Rybar Telegram channel issued a rebuke, according to which irretrievable losses reach 110 people. The authors blamed the command of the First Army Corps of the People's Militia of the DPR. “Unfortunately, after the death of General Roman Kutuzov, the command of the formation began to neglect common sense and intelligence information in favor of some kind of military science and expediency,” the channel writes. - <...> Everyone is to blame, except for the leadership, who decided to choose a place of the most compact residence. ”
In addition, the channel clarified the picture of what happened: “At 00.01 on January 1, 2023, the vocational school building in Donetsk Makeevka was hit by a HIMARS MLRS (two shells were intercepted by air defense, four reached the target). From mid-December, 14444 regiments were placed in vocational schools. Yes, they were all mobilized. In the same place, due to someone's criminal naivety, they decided to place a warehouse with ammunition, which detonated as a result of the impact.
In early November, Rybar, in the context of the well-known "letter from the Marines," called for the introduction of personal criminal liability for top commanders for ill-considered decisions that "resulted in the death of personnel as a result of operational and tactical miscalculations": "without this, reformatting in the brains of the leadership is impossible." According to the channel, at that time since February there had not been a single case of bringing dismissed commanders even to administrative responsibility.
15:24 Gazprom has published two main indicators for 2022: production (412.6 billion cubic meters) and exports to non-CIS countries (100.9 billion cubic meters). In 2021, there were 514.8 and 185.1 billion cubic meters, respectively - that is, exports almost halved.
14:47 The Wall Street Journal has compiled forecasts from 23 leading US investment companies, and only five of them do not predict a US recession in 2023 or 2024.
Most likely it will be shallow, but most of the signs are obvious: Americans have significantly squandered coronavirus savings (including benefits), the real estate market is in decline, banks have tightened requirements for borrowers. And the yield curve of government bonds has inverted - this is the surest sign of all recessions since the Second World War.
The five optimists (Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley) still expect the economy to grow by just 0.5% in 2023, after a 2.1% average over the past 20 years. The biggest optimists at Goldman are forecasting 1%. "Many historically strong leading indicators point to a recession, but in our opinion they fail to correctly predict this risk in the current environment," said Jeremy Schwartz, chief US economist at Credit Suisse.
How much you can trust Wall Street forecasts after investment banks predicted mediocre growth for the stock market in 2022, and regulators - transient inflation for the economy, is a big question. We have outlined our 2023 forecasts for Russian stocks here .
12:03 Gas quotes on TTF today fell to $800 per thousand cubic meters - the level before the start of the war in Ukraine. In full accordance with weather forecasts, the weather in Europe is very warm for January: 14 degrees in Berlin, 10 degrees in Amsterdam, 12 degrees in Warsaw. Spot prices have almost halved in December: the EU has managed to replace most of the Russian pipeline gas with LNG.
11:18 IMF Executive Director Kristalina Georgieva warned that the world economy is waiting for "a year harder than the last" - a third of the world economy will fall into recession. "Why? Because the three largest economies are simultaneously slowing down - the US, the EU and China, ”she said.
According to the IMF, the United States in 2023 can still avoid a recession and even become the backbone of the whole world in overcoming the crisis, but half of the EU countries will experience a recession due to the severe impact of the war in Ukraine. China is also in for a difficult year.
The main thing for the night and morning:
- Deputy Minister of Information of the DPR Daniil Bezsonov confirmed the strike of the Ukrainian Armed Forces from HIMARS installations on the building of a vocational school in Makeevka, where the Russian military were stationed. Patriotic channels added to the picture of what happened, accusing those responsible for the crowded placement of people in the obvious object of attack of incompetence and inability to perceive the experience of the war. Presumably, the building was mobilized from the Saratov region. Ukrainian channels write about 500-600 dead and wounded, Russian - that there are much fewer victims. It is not possible to independently evaluate this information; there is no comment from the Russian Ministry of Defense on the morning of January 2.
- On the night of January 2, the Russian Armed Forces attacked Kyiv with drones. The Armed Forces of Ukraine reported on the defeat of 20 air targets, however, a critical infrastructure facility was damaged, new power outages in the capital of Ukraine.
- From the Voronezh region, they reported an attempt by Ukrainian drones to attack a large military airfield "Baltimore" (Su-34 bombers). Presumably, the object's air defense system worked, there are no data on losses on the ground. In the Klimovsky district of the Bryansk region, a power supply facility was damaged by a drone .
- NASA chief Bill Nelson said that China's lunar program has gained momentum, and that if China wins the new lunar race, it can claim the most resource-rich territories on the moon. The United States has planned a new landing on a natural satellite for 2025, China wants to start building a manned lunar station in 2027.