No one knows how far down they are. Could be 90%. Could be 99.9%. With the ruble being 0 right now, probably 99.9%. This is Russian stock market right now.
I guess both. US is clearly a winner from this situation in many aspects such as: 1. It helps to distance Europe from Russia, break economic ties and increase reliance including military on the US. Also there is hardening perception that Russia is truly an aggressor, despite from 1996 it was reiterated many times that Ukraine inclusion into NATO is a "red line" for Russia. The West pretended that they are deaf lol and now "surprised" of Russia response. 2. Same as with 9/11. When there is a consensus in the society that there is enemy or there is a threat, military spending bills and pursuing other interests (energy lobby?) meets much less resistance. Who will argue that Russian invasion should be left without strong and unified response? Much easier to consolidate and convince society there should be some particular response. Also there is clearly the scapegoat to blame in rising fuel prices and other issues. 3. A pretext to increase sanctions pressure and force EU peers to follow suit. Ukraine has been clearly manipulated by West since they signed Minsk II agreement. West implicitly guaranteed that it will lend the shoulder in the confrontation with Russia so Ukraine could sabotage implementation of key parts of the agreement (cease-fire and special status of Donbass region). But now the narrative that Russia wants to occupy the Ukraine because Putin wants to restore USSR. What for lol?
So true, visa and mastercard will be a big one. Yes they have their own systems but to communicate with the global economy they need much more than what they have. US embargo coming too on energy. Really putting the squeeze on
I’m just going by the change in NAV of RSX which was 25 and now 1. But that’s based on the GDR’s so you are right. no one knows.
Sure. And there's a history of people banking on it: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/crash/etc/russia.html