To follow up: Putin just signed a law that basically confiscates all leased airplanes, "re-registers" them internally and issues air-worthiness certificates internally. Which means that none of these airplanes can fly abroad to almost any place because: 1. The air-worthiness documents will not be accepted and 2. The airplanes will be confiscated by the leasing companies that own them. This already happened. "Nordwind Airlines" plane was arrested and confiscated in Mexico by its owner, Dubai's DAE Capital. There was another plane confiscated in Dubai itself - from Ural Airlines.
ASUS announced it is getting out of Russia - both the business and the offices. It is working on "evacuating" its offices and workers.
EU is preparing in the next day or so to put into effect further sanctions against all Russian oil companies. All investing, technology transfer, financial services will be stopped.
The west v Russia: why the global south isn’t taking sides The contrast between these maps could not be more striking. The US, the UK, Canada, South Korea, Switzerland, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Singapore, the EU: beyond this fortified coalition, very few nations have chosen to take part in the economic warfare set against the Putin government. On the contrary, many of the world’s largest nations – including China, India, Brazil, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, and even Nato ally Turkey – have refused to join in Latin America has been equally steadfast in its commitment to neutrality. “We do not consider that [this war] concerns us,” said the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The Latin American position has been echoed in Africa. “For five centuries, we have been pawns in the hands of the warring European states, bent on looting Africa of its human and natural sources,” says Pierre Sané, president of the Imagine Africa Institute and former secretary-general of Amnesty International. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/10/russia-ukraine-west-global-south-sanctions-war
Summary: Wednesday is payment day... Russia could default on its debt within days https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/14/investing/russia-economy-default/index.html Russia has sent the clearest signal yet that it will soon default — the first time it will have failed to meet its foreign debt obligations since the Bolshevik revolution more than a century ago. Half of the country's foreign reserves — roughly $315 billion — have been frozen by Western sanctions imposed after the invasion of Ukraine, Russian finance minister Anton Siluanov said on Sunday. As a result, Moscow will repay creditors from "countries that are unfriendly" in rubles until the sanctions are lifted, he said. Credit ratings agencies would likely consider Russia to be in default if Moscow misses payments or repays debt issued in dollars or euros with other currencies such as the ruble or China's yuan. A default could drive the few remaining foreign investors out of Russia and further isolate the country's crumbling economy. The default could come as early as Wednesday, when Moscow needs to hand over $117 million in interest payments on dollar-denominated government bonds, according to JPMorgan Chase. Although Russia has issued bonds that can be repaid in multiple currencies since 2018, these payments must be made in US dollars. Imminent default Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said Sunday that a Russian default is no longer "improbable." "Russia has the money to service its debt, but cannot access it," she said during an interview on CBS' Face the Nation. Last week, Fitch Ratings downgraded Russian debt, saying Moscow's willingness and ability to service its debts has been undermined and default "is imminent." The ratings agency also warned that Russia may attempt to repay creditors in specified countries in rubles. Analysts at Capital Economics said that a default was already reflected in the price of Russia's dollar bonds, which have crashed to trade at just 20 cents on the dollar. The interest payments due Wednesday come with a 30-day grace period. But credit ratings agencies could declare Russia to be in default before that period ends if Moscow makes clear that it does not intend to pay. Russia last defaulted on its domestic debt when the country was plunged into a financial crisis by a collapse in commodity prices in 1998. Its most recent foreign currency default came in 1918 when Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin repudiated bonds issued by the Tsarist government. What happens next The Russian government has borrowed relatively little. JPMorgan estimates that it had about $40 billion of foreign currency debt at the end of last year, with about half of that held by foreign investors. But the potential consequences of a default are difficult to gauge. The 2008 global financial crisis and the coronavirus pandemic showed how negative shocks can spread across the modern interconnected global financial system and economy. International banks are owed more than $121 billion by Russian entities, according to the Bank for International Settlements. European banks have over $84 billion total claims, with France, Italy and Austria the most exposed, and US banks owed $14.7 billion. Georgieva said Sunday that a financial crisis was unlikely to develop "for now," saying that the exposure of Western banks was "not systemically relevant." Even if Moscow halts payments to foreign investors on all sovereign debt, the roughly $60 billion default — including ruble debt held overseas — would be in the same ballpark as Argentina's in 2020 — a non-event for markets. But analysts at Capital Economics warned that one major financial institution might be particularly exposed to Russian debt, which could cause broader financial contagion. A second risk is that a default could trigger missed payments by Russian companies. Vladimir Potanin, Russia's richest businessman, called last week for Moscow to ease restrictions on foreign currency so that interest could be paid on foreign bonds and loans. Otherwise, there was a risk the country could default on its entire external debt, which he estimated at about $480 billion. "For Russia, the main cost is being locked out of global capital markets, or at least higher borrowing costs for a prolonged period. But sanctions have done that anyway," wrote analysts at Capital Economics.
From what I understand, Russia has large gold reserves. Will be interesting to know how they will use that. Also whether gold price will be influenced.
They can sell it, but not easily, and it will have to be at a discount. https://warontherocks.com/2022/03/the-unfreezable-asset-gold-sanctions-and-russia/
Considering the head of the Russian space program has been one of the biggest loud-mouth supporters of Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Here is an answer -- "I think not. Go beg elsewhere." In Change of Strategy, Russian Space Program Begs NASA for Help https://futurism.com/russia-begs-nasa-help/amp Softening Tone The head of Russia’s space program is apparently changing his tune. Dmitry Rogozin, the director general of Russian space agency Roscosmos, appealed to NASA for help in the wake of incredibly restrictive economic sanctions on his home country over the weekend. Strangely, that message comes after weeks of spouting pro-Putin and anti-US propaganda, not to mention belligerent threats about the International Space Station, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “Roscosmos sends written appeals to NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, and the European Space Agency with a demand to lift illegal sanctions from our enterprises,” Rogozin tweeted in Russian on Saturday. He added that this is in the interest of the ISS — which, it’s worth noting, he has threatened to destroy. Propaganda Post This seems to represent a shift in strategy for Rogozin, who has been an ardent supporter of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine since it began at the end of February. His words have resulted in widespread condemnation from the international space community, as well as a feud with NASA astronaut Scott Kelly. Despite his chest thumping, Rogozin seems to be struggling with the invasion’s consequences back home. He’s even reportedly gone as far as forbidding Roscosmos employees from traveling abroad for fear of them fleeing for good. His latest tweets highlight the cracks in that strongman persona, though. He can posture all he wants, but the fact is that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is ruining the lives of not just the Ukrainian people, but those in Russia as well — and no amount of threats can hide that.