Translated material
The cost of war in Ukraine. Online January 17
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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21:44 The German oil and gas company Wintershall Dea has announced its decision to leave Russia. The loss from the write-off of Russian assets is estimated at €5.3 billion.
“It is not advisable to continue working in Russia. Russia's aggressive war in Ukraine is incompatible with our values, it has destroyed cooperation between Russia and Europe. Restrictions on the activities of Western companies in the country, imposed by the Russian government in recent months, and external interference in the activities of our joint venture made it impossible for Wintershall Dea to operate in Russia, and also led to the economic expropriation of joint ventures in Russia, ”says CEO Mario Mehren in a statement . on the company's website.
One of Vladimir Putin's recent decrees prohibits Gazprom from buying gas from joint ventures with Wintershall Dea (and the Austrian OMV) above the regulated price.
- Last winter, journalists suspected Wintershall Dea of involvement in the war in Ukraine. In a joint investigation by Der Spiegel and the Frontal project of the ZDF television channel, it was said that gas condensate produced in Russia by joint ventures of Wintershall Dea and Gazprom, among other things, can be processed into fuel for Russian military aircraft. The company denied the connection between the supply of gas condensate and the loss of life in Ukraine.
20:59 The Netherlands is preparing to transfer Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine
The Netherlands has officially announced the supply of Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine. This was stated by Prime Minister Mark Rutte at a meeting in Washington with US President Joe Biden. Until now, the United States and Germany have agreed to send these ground-based air defense systems, which will help protect against Russian cruise missiles.
Details on the number of installations and timing are not given. Bloomberg, who first broke the news citing sources, notes that it could be several more months before the Patriots are actually deployed in Ukraine, especially given the need to train Ukrainian specialists to operate the system.
- Since mid-September, Russia has focused on striking Ukraine's critical infrastructure, leaving millions without heat, water or electricity. Ukraine has been asking the US and other allies for months for air and missile defense systems. Washington agreed to transfer the Patriot air defense systems at the end of December. Later, Germany joined the initiative.
- The last massive shelling of Ukrainian cities by Russia occurred on January 14. One of the rockets hit a residential building in the Dnieper. According to the latest data , the death toll has risen to 45 people, including six children.
19:45 Ukraine received the first tranche of credit macro-financial assistance from the European Union this year in the amount of 3 billion euros. The money will go, in particular, to the payment of pensions, salaries and social benefits. The loan has a maturity of 35 years, interest and other debt service payments will be paid by the EU countries. In total, within the framework of the program, 18 billion euros should be transferred to the accounts of Ukraine in 2023.
19:14 The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, confirmed the EU's intention to introduce a new, tenth, package of anti-Russian sanctions. It will be aimed at closing loopholes, and also provides for serious consequences for those who circumvent the restrictions.
18:59 Vladimir Putin submitted to the State Duma a draft law "On the termination of international treaties of the Council of Europe with respect to the Russian Federation." Among these documents are the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the European Convention for the Suppression of Terrorism, the European Charter of Local Self-Government, etc. They will be considered terminated in Russia after March 16, 2022.
18:03 Apple must pay almost 1.2 billion rubles in fines for "abuse of dominant position" in the Russian market. This decision was taken by the Federal Antimonopoly Service.
“Apple imposed on Russian developers of iOS applications the need to use the company's payment instrument in their applications,” said the FAS in a statement. We are talking about the Apple Pay system. The agency accused the corporation, in particular, of banning iOS application developers from informing customers within the program about the possibility of paying for purchases outside the App Store or using alternative methods, as well as adding links to their Internet resources.
The regulator opened a case against Apple in the fall of 2021, and admitted the corporation’s guilt in violating antitrust laws in July 2022. “As a result of an administrative investigation, the FAS Russia fined Apple in the amount of 1,177,988,700 rubles (more than $17 million) for violating antitrust laws,” the agency concluded. The fine must be paid within two months from the date of entry into force of the document on its imposition.
Apple Pay and Google Play wallets stopped working in Russia on the night of March 5-6, 2022 in response to its military actions in Ukraine.
17:37 Major US banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley reported a drop in quarterly profits amid rising interest rates, the war in Ukraine and fears of an impending recession, reports The Wall Street Journal. Goldman's fourth-quarter net income sank 66% year-on-year to $1.33 billion. Revenue fell 16% year-over-year to $10.59 billion. Morgan Stanley reported a 40% drop in net income to $1.33 billion. $2.2 billion
16:15 The Office of the President of Ukraine accepted the resignation of Oleksiy Arestovich from the post of adviser to the office . Earlier, he said on social networks that he wrote a letter of resignation after his unverified allegation about the circumstances of a rocket hit a residential building in Dnipro.
14:45 Putin signed a decree allowing not to take into account the votes of representatives of unfriendly countries in the management structures of large energy, trade and industrial companies.
14:18 Kazakhstan has introduced a new procedure for the stay of visa-free immigrants. From January 27, citizens of the EAEU member states, including Russians, can stay in Kazakhstan for no more than 90 days within a 180-day period. This closes the option of a short-term trip abroad (visa run) to resume the countdown of the period of stay.
According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the country, almost 150,000 Russians out of more than 400,000 who arrived in Kazakhstan after the announcement of partial mobilization in Russia since the end of September remained in the republic . Only 36,000 people have obtained a temporary residence permit (which gives them the right to stay for more than 90 days): this requires special reasons, such as work, business or family reunification.
The Russian authorities have repeatedly called reports of a new wave of mobilization provocative. Just today, Dmitry Peskov said that the topic is being artificially supported from abroad. Western media, indeed, wrote about the mobilization of another 500,000 people, citing data from Western and Ukrainian intelligence services.
12:08 Advisor to the Office of the President of Ukraine Oleksiy Arestovich posted a resignation letter signed today in his account. He wrote that he wanted to set an example of civilized behavior: "a fundamental mistake, then resign."
Over the weekend, Arestovich said that a Russian missile had hit a house in Dnipro on January 14 (today 41 dead), but it was knocked off course by Ukrainian air defense. This was refuted by the Ukrainian General Staff, which stated that the Kh-22 missile exploded, which the existing Ukrainian air defense is not capable of intercepting in principle.
In the media field, the war of versions looked bad: Russian channels quickly found the previous Ukrainian media reports about the downed Kh-22s, and the Air Force official was forced to declare that they were all false. Arestovich himself wrote that "being radically tired" he only suggested that the Ukrainian air defense could have knocked the missile off course. quickly took advantage of Russian propagandists spoke about the anti-aircraft missile with reference to the “conclusion of some representatives of the Ukrainian side”. the contradictions, and Dmitry Peskov also
12:01 Spot gas prices in Europe have fallen again - this time to $580 per thousand cubic meters. This is already the level of the end of the summer of 2021. We described the decline factors the day before - along with warm weather in the EU, this is a reduced demand for LNG in China, forcing the redirection of gas carriers to Europe.
11:40 Traditional polls for the forum in Davos this year are gloomy. Thus, 73% of more than four thousand business leaders surveyed by PwC in October-November last year expect global growth to slow down in the next 12 months. This is the worst result since the beginning of these surveys in 2011. And two out of every five businessmen fear their companies won't survive the next 10 years unless they change radically.
Last year, top managers named cybersecurity, health care and climate change as the main risks, this year - inflation, macroeconomic instability and geopolitics. Moreover, the latter is not limited to Russia and Ukraine, but includes Iran and the growing economic confrontation between the US and the EU.
A separate poll of chief economists conducted by the forum itself showed that two-thirds expect a recession in 2023, with 18% considering such a scenario "highly likely".
10:44 Net profit of Sberbank in 2022 fell fourfold to 300 billion rubles. Bank President German Gref said that in the second half of the year Sberbank returned to the growth trajectory. The bank is celebrating a record December: for the month it issued 625 billion rubles of loans to the population, of which 382 billion rubles were mortgage loans.
The main thing for the night and morning:
- Four dozen Western banks are unable to exit Russian assets on acceptable terms due to Putin's decree prohibiting this without the approval of the authorities, writes the Financial Times. Companies trying to negotiate an exit fear that their "daughters" will be intercepted very cheaply by "influential Russians with close ties to the Kremlin."
- The year 2022 turned out to be not as disastrous for the Chinese economy as the pandemic 2020, but close to it. for the first time since the 1970s, The country's GDP grew by just 3% following an 8.1% recovery in 2021. Another historic milestone is the first population decline since the famine of the early 1960s: minus 850 thousand people for 1.41 billion people in China.
- Half of transactions with secondary housing in Russia in 2022 were carried out by proxy, learned Kommersant . This is an unprecedented amount and shows that those who moved abroad urgently got rid of Russian real estate.
- After a series of scandals with New Year's trips, regional authorities began to strongly recommend officials not to leave Russia at all. But so far, this is not a centralized campaign.
- In December, India's purchases of Russian oil grew 33 times yoy and by 29% compared to November to 1.2 million bpd. Thanks to the huge discounts that Russia is forced to accept because of the oil embargo and price ceiling, India has become the main buyer of Russian oil, and Russia its largest supplier.