Putin signed an order this week mandating the use of roubles to buy its resources and I canât quite believe more isnât being made of it.
The truth is that despite the sanctions, people still need and have still been buying Russian energy. Despite Bidenâs plan to frack the world and ship the contents, turns out that pipelines are better and cheaper at this sort of thing.
The shift to roubles is a massive deal. First, the only ever reason youâd previously need them is if you were buying things other than energy commodities from Russia. If other countries play along, the rouble now covers the energy part, and the rouble becomes a commodity in its own right. The thing you need to get the thing.
That status has previously been the dollarâs domain, and the West has been to war several times to sustain it. There is, however, a big fucking difference between tinpot dictators in the Middle East and Putinâs Russia. Not sure the usual plan will work.
Why is Putin asking for roubles? Sure people need the gas but not as much as Putin need roubles, the economies of the west will crush Russiaâs economy, you may want a reality of Putin actually doing well but the reality is his poorly equipped and trained army is retreating, their demands are lessening and theyâre skint.
This Russian army is so poor if it wasnât so so serious it would be laughable, a supposed modern outfit having to resort to medieval siege tactics of indiscriminate bombing as they canât control the land nor cities sums it up, he has galvanised the Russian speaking east into being Ukrainian in a month, that would have taken Ukraine generations to do.
Ordinary Russians will suffer but theyâll have to unfortunately as their tinpot leader is killing 1000âs of innocents.
Pap, you donât seem to want to, what donât you believe?
That Russia is the aggressor?
That Russia is guilty of numerous war crimes?
That Russia is losing economically, militarily and politically?
What parts donât you believe? If you say what parts we can discuss it but point blankly saying you donât believe the commentators is a throwaway comment, it means little, there is a war on of course there is propaganda, the key is the numbers game, the sources saying Russia are doing well are slim and most condemn him.
So you believe Russia are winning the war militarily, politically and economically?
What have you got to back those thoughts up?
Most think theyâre getting hammered and this is as bad as their ends days in Afghanistan and theyâve only been there a month, their objectives have changed as well, from regime change and a puppet installed to now only wanting an eastern buffer zone (not assured at all), theyâve also conceded on EU accession.
The roubles shows how troubled they are, sure they can cut off the gas and that will send the World into recession but it will bankrupt Russia, force himself out of office and Russia will get a far far softer Kremlin looking to appease the West, Russia is a gnat to the West in size of economy and military (I donât know if you know but Putin said he could take Kyiv in 2 weeks if he wanted to in 2014) and NATO could crush it within a month if it so wanted but at what cost? A cost that any civilised person wouldnât take unless it was absolutely needed, Putin isnât civilised and war crimes donât bother him.
You made a bold statement so Iâd imagine you know something about how well the Russian invasion is going, care to enlighten us as most think theyâre losing in everyway.
Does it look as though the currency markets think Putin was bluffing about asking for payment in roubles?
When the German chancellor shit his pants and got straight on the phone to Putin the other day do you think he thought the situation was not serious?
The point is this:
So what is different now?
The EU buyer is now required to deliver roubles, not Euros, to Gazprom at an unblocked account or an unsanctioned bank. Since there is very little in the way of roubles outside Russia, the buyer will now need to open and maintain rouble accounts in a Russian bank. That means Russia controls whether or not the account is blocked on its side.
To put it more bluntly: To sell Euros, the EU needs to keep the Russian banks sanction-free, otherwise it canât trade Euros for roubles to procure gas.
So of course the Germans still pay Euros, they pay Euros for rubles and then rubles for gas but the rubles bit is besides the point, the actual point is that they need to use a Russian bank account to do this, which canât be frozen by the West.
Most amusing sight this week has been little englanders on social media typing about how Europe should have already turned off the Gas Pipelines.
Morons.
It is snowing across Europe, temperatures down below freezing, just how do they imagine 400 or so million people will avoid freezing to death in the next week?
Or maybe they are happy to shut down virtually all of the EU manufacturing plants including food processing because they can grow their own food for when it runs out in 2 weeks.
Germanyâs stance since day 1 has been to avoid any impact on their economy, they already had to change position once and will do so again.
Russia will not lose, they will keep the meat grinder going. It is how they work, they are just moving to grind the place more slowly, starting in the East.
The reason he wants payment in roubles is that the only place to buy roubles from is Russia who can then set the exchange rate - that in turn will help prop up their economy
Thatâs just another way of saying that Russia could charge Europe more for its gas than the agreed contractual price. At the moment Russia isnât saying thatâs what itâs going to do at all. Indications suggest they intend to honour the agreements albeit with this procedural modification. If at some point in the future, perhaps when the existing contracts expire or perhaps if they have reason to break the contract then they donât need to piss about with exchange rates, they just threaten to switch off the gas and ask for more money.
I know from your posts youâre pro Russian or appear to be but please, Russia is skint and that is why theyâre asking for payment in roubles. Why are they selling it at a knocked off price to India?
Well its not winning, theyâve had to change their goals in all of this from the start, I notice the gas is still being piped from Russia also and I also notice the deadline has passed and theyâre still being paid in euros, may change of course but usage will go down if so and so will their receipts, theyâre skint remember, theyâve no money and even resorted to buying blag goods to keep their consumer market going.
