On
Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said “unfriendly countries”
would continue to receive Russian natural gas in volumes and prices
fixed in contracts, but are now to pay for the commodity in the
country’s national currency.
In Asia, these include Japan, South
Korea, and China's Taiwan, which import liquefied natural gas (LNG)
from Russia’s Sakhalin-2 and Yamal LNG projects.
Commenting on
the development, Japanese Finance Minister Shun’ichi Suzuki claimed that
Tokyo is confused about Russia’s demand, which is actually rather
simple - no ruble means no gas.
Japan is the biggest importer of
Russian LNG in Asia, purchasing 6.84 million tons of liquefied gas from
the country in 2021, according to Refinitiv data, which is nearly 9% of
its total LNG imports.
“Frankly speaking, we do not yet fully
understand the goals and how this will be carried out… the government is
currently in discussions with the responsible ministries and agencies
to assess the situation,” Suzuki state.
Russia's goal is clear - retaliation for Japan's sanctions.
After
Japan imposed far-reaching economic penalties on Russia following its
special military operation in Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Ministry said
Japan is damaging Russian interests by taking an "obviously unfriendly"
stance toward the country, and withdrew from negotiations with Japan
for a peace treaty to formally end World War II hostilities.
In
addition to exiting the peace talks, Russia ended visa-free travel to a
chain of Russian-controlled islands called the Northern Territories by
Tokyo and the Southern Kurils by Russia.
On Friday, Russian
military said it has started a military exercise involving more than
3,000 troops on a chain of islands including those disputed with Japan,
Russian news agency Interfax reported.
Anonymous
PS. The Japanese are acting blur. The debt that the Japanese owed to Russia, the Koreas and China they also pretended that nothing had happened. These debts would be settled one day and there would be no Japan left to talk about.
15 comments:
As usual, I have the good and bad news over the Ukraine war from Channel News America. Take it with some salt if you like. I did that.
The bad news is that the Ruble has strengthened very rapidly, which means unfriendly countries now have to use more of their local currencies to buy Ruble to pay for the gas and oil. That will have a further lifting feeling for the Ruble going forward. What is even more painful, for Japan in particular, is that the Yen has been sliding downwards. Japan must be baffled by this too. Careful, because they started a war when pushed against the wall before.
From the initial start of the conflict and imposition of sanctions, the Ruble actually went down to 140 Rubles to the US$. Biden was gloating how successful he was with the sanctions, and wanting to bring the Ruble down to 200 Rubles to the US$ to collapse the Russian economy. Putin just played one simple card and chaos ensued all over Europe, Japan, and those unfriendly countries. All the Washington and Brussels Gang of geniuses thought they could outfox one man Putin. Today the US$ is just worth 76 Rubles. Realistically, how much is Putin's strategic ability worth compared to all the geniuses in Washington and Brussels? That same question had been asked about Xi earlier.
Now for the most important news. Russian soldiers, from running tanks over their own commanders, are now shooting down their own planes. And it is reported by some MSM that Russian soldiers are eating dogs because they are fed up with eating rations. Now, will animal lovers now investigate Russia's act of cruelty to animals as another issue from this report? This is a sure sign that the Russians are on the verge of collapsing. Why then is Zelensky negotiating for a ceasefire? He should push the Russians back into Russia if Ukraine is winning the war, right.
The other important news (I could not differentiate whether it is good or bad, as it affects two sides, but definitely important) is that the USA is releasing oil stocks to lower the oil prices. But a few dollars is not going to make any difference to Europe if the USA's oil and gas is going to cost them five times or more than Russian oil and gas. But as they say, no fish prawn also good. The question is for how long and how much oil stocks can the USA release without replenishing and become a National Security issue? Taking oil out and replenishing it shortly makes no difference to the supply shortage, right? And of course Russia can just keep it's oil reserves underground for as long as they like. And it is said that when Russia fights a war, it is going for the long haul, just like against Hitler and Napoleon. So, sit tight and see who blinks first.
News is now so difficult to comprehend. There are fake new, fabricated news, alternative news, selective news, distorted news and even contorted news like dog eating.
Europe is a small piece of land with 800m people but without the capacity to provide enough food for themselves and the energy to keep themselves warm and life activities going.
They depended heavily on trade and the supply chain for food and energy. The war has disrupted all the supply chains.
In 3 months, that is all Europe can pretend that all is well, the facade of living it up will collapse and Europe will be crying for food and energy. Europe will tank if the war and disruption drags on for more than 6 months.
The western media may be gloating and putting up all the fake news that Europe is doing well, winning the war. If that is so, Zelensky does not need to have peace talks and does not need to ask for more support and weapons.
All is not well for Zelensky and Europe.
Sit back and watch the show, see how Europe collapses without free food and resources from the colonies. Europe is not self sufficient in food and energy. Period.
Japan is also in the same boat. Without Russian oil and gas, and food, see how long can Japan last.
Putin said, 'No Ruble, no gold, no oil and gas.'
Wait till the end of the year when winter approaches, if the was goes that far. Then the real fund begins.
Ironically, Hitler's Nazi Germany was defeated largely because of the Russian winter bogging down and decimating his troops due to food and logistic supplies. This winter may be the Waterloo of the European States.
The shortage of oil and gas will slowly choke the economy of Europe. When Rubles are in short supply due to demand, Russia will see a great revival, with a strong Ruble coupled with oil and gas revenue advancing with such high prices. Was this a trap that Putin set for the USA and Europe? Germany can scuttle Nord Stream 2, it now matters not to Russia as their oil and gas and food is moving East.
Now the USA is concerned and warning India not to buy more Russian oil and gas. One QUAD member warning another QUAD member? A quack (crack) in the QUAD is now surfacing. Looks like Red Dot may be replacing India in the QUAD. Who knows? Biden already praised Red Dot saying it is punching above it's weight. Move aside India!
India tell the West: "You rich bastards sanction 3 top oil producing countries - Russia, Iran, Venezuela - causing high oil prices and elevated oil import bill for India, and you still want us poor country to stop buying available cheaper oil?"
Red Dot is run by Indians. So one Indian state replacing another, should be ok. This one more powerful, can control the Malacca Strait.
Without the Indians, Singapore would still be a little fishing village in the third world.
Energy War
Russia’s greatest military victories came in wars of attrition.
Russians soaked up appalling damage at the hands of Napoleon and Hitler, outlasted them, and then pushed both back. The current war might also turn into one of attrition.
Vladimir Putin showed in Chechnya his preparedness to keep inflicting pain on his adversaries, and he might yet repeat the trick in Ukraine.
For the world, the most profound impact of the Ukraine conflict could rest on energy. Indeed, it’s tempting to say that this is a war over energy, even if it has a different declared purpose
Maybe Putin never intended to conquer all of Ukraine: that, from the beginning, his real targets were the energy riches of Ukraine’s east, which contain Europe’s second-largest known reserves of natural gas (after Norway’s).
Combine that with Russia’s previous territorial seizures in Crimea (which has huge offshore energy fields) and the eastern provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk (which contain part of an enormous shale-gas field), as well as Putin’s bid to control most or all of Ukraine’s coastline, and the shape of Putin’s ambitions become clear.
He’s less interested in reuniting the Russian-speaking world than he is in securing Russia’s energy dominance, which is now at the center of the broader conflict between Putin’s Russia and the West.
Yes, energy is a critical factor in the Ukraine war. Logistic would also come into play for the Americans and Europe to feed Ukraine in everything. The economy of Ukraine for the moment is as good and dysfunctional. For the poor Ukrainians, living would get more miserable as the days go by when food and supplies would go down to a trickle.
This is a blessing for the rise of China. The virus is doing a great job crippling the American and European economies. Now they have to cough out a lot more in everything to keep the war in Ukraine going, feeding its people and the people of Europe.
Not wanting to sound cruel and heartless, Europe and the US deserve this to cripple their own economies and impoverish their people as the war drags on and on. Instead of living peacefully and trying to improve the lives of their people, they are as good as cutting off their hands and legs in the process.
The virus are doing a great job to destroy these evil warmongers. This Ukraine war they planned for would expedite their demise as affluent countries. They would all be bogged down for some time to come.
The IMF has admitted now that the sanctions on Russia have chipped away at the dominance of the US$. Why are they telling the obvious? Unless one is sleeping under the carpet, this fact is already widely known to Tom, Dick and Harry.
The IMF and World Bank themselves have lost their dominance, as countries realised that loans taken from them are debt traps. Mahathir already knew that in 2008, during the financial crisis, and refused to accept IMF help with long strings attached.
Now with China's loans and projects undertaken clearly visible and beneficial to the economy of those countries along the BRI, more and more countries, who were reluctant to join initially, are jumping on the bandwagon.
Sergei Lavrov is visiting India on Thursday, which is today. Interesting development just right after Wan Yi's visit. Russia, China and India are sounding each other out over their next move, now that Biden has openly warned India of the consequence of buying more oil from Russia.
On the sidelines is the UK new foreign minister, Liz Truss, who is also expected in India, trying to do a Kamala Harris perhaps. As the former colonial masters of India, the UK has done much harm to India, siphoning away as much as US$ (or Sterling) 45 trillion during their rule over India to fund the Industrial Revolution. There is also the undocumented apparent genocide of the Indians through starvation by shipping food back to England to feed the Whites, leaving millions in India to face starvation.
Just as China should never forget the Century of Shame under the bullying by the Europeans and Japanese, India must never forget the humiliation by the UK.
The American and western media is on a propaganda war, trying to portray that Zelensky is winning and the Russian soldiers are turning against Putin. Knowing how bad the situation on the ground is for the Ukrainians, no one is going to believe them as Putin is clearly in control and dictating the pace of the war.
They are also trying to lie to the world that the sanctions against Russia is only hurting the Russian. The truth is that the Europeans are in deep trouble and would not be able to pretend for long that they are ok. In a month or two the European countries would be down on their knees begging for help.
The cost of living and inflation in the European countries would be so unbearable that they may even topple their own govts for not able to say no to the Americans.
Just as MSM portrayed Trump's trade war as exacting a heavy toll on China, the reverse is true. Did China collapse? Did China's GDP nosedived because of the trade war? In fact China's economy did better than many other countries during the COVID19 outbreak.
Now the USA and the West believes in their own lies and cannot see the reality. The do not know what is the truth and how to handle it.
They keep blaming China for the trade deficit. The reality is the USA is now unable to manufacture anything valuable that the Chinese wants, except weapons of destruction which they dared not sell to the Chinese. Depending on the sale of agricultural products to China alone makes minimal effect upon the deficit with China. So, how can the deficit ever be reduced? And they think they are going to start a conflict over Taiwan and eventually have reasons to sanction China in their next move after Ukraine? They better think deeper about the consequences and not just look no further than the tip of their nose.
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