patrick.net

AmericanKulak says

There's a lot of strange stories and shit isn't adding up on both sides.

Are they trying to create a cauldron or what in the Donbas? If they are, speed it up. If they aren't, what's their problem?

More like "cauldronchik", encircling a brigade or two. And their problem is their teeth being kicked into their throats at every step towards that lofty achievement, causing "minor corrections" to the plan.

Bd6r says

Depends on unit but on average they are fighting hard. Proof - Russians have been ejected from swaths of territories and have scaled back their appetites considerably.

Yep, Russian military was sent it without air cover, stupidly generals didn't think Ukraine would fight back. They did, blew up a lot of Russian tanks, and Russia had to pull back into territories they can provide air cover in and line support.

Bd6r says

A more interesting question is why Putin attacked at exactly right moment when it was starting to be clear that covid!!! panic was manufactured and shutdowns/vaccines had killed more than covid itself. War drowned out covid in media

This is just an opinion, but I think it's pure coincidence. Covid wasn't ending, Biden was still wearing a mask and media was still telling people to mask up. I remember that day when the war begun, suddenly Biden showed up without a mask and everyone noticed. Our faggot media had to pivot suddenly to worry about war and not covid. Because their covid plans of great reset have been thrown into chaos by a war. A war they did push Russia and Ukraine into. World is fucked up man.

FortWayneAsNancyPelosiHaircut says

This is just an opinion, but I think it's pure coincidence.

It is possible but perhaps somewhat unlikely. Very few things happen by chance. "They" aka globalists needed something that would take attention of impressionable masses of covid disaster, and they got it. Biden got someone to blame for inflation and gas prices (even though most of increase happened before Russian attack). I wonder if Vlad and Joe are on the same team at expense of Americans, Russians, and Ukrainians.

RWSGFY says

richwicks says

FortWayneAsNancyPelosiHaircut says

Well, they swapped Ukraine in, overnight got rid of masks... and now we talking about Russia/Ukraine all day long.

It's called the Overton Window. I actually regard the Ukraine war as basically yet another distraction. I wonder what fuckery our government is up to during times like these?

Obviously, our government has hired Pooty-poot to distract us from FortWhine's problems, duh.

don’t be a dick

Son of Medvedev - the clown who was warming pedo Vlad's seat for 4 years in order to circumvent the constitutional limit on the number of terms in the office - has been kicked out of the US:

https://mobile.twitter.com/expatua/status/1533115068526825473?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

RWSGFY says

Son of Medvedev - the clown who was warming pedo Vlad's seat for 4 years in order to circumvent the constitutional limit on the number of terms in the office - has been kicked out of the US:

https://mobile.twitter.com/expatua/status/1533115068526825473?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

That TRIGGERED him big time:





https://twitter.com/AlexKokcharov/status/1534084406801047553

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/12/mcdonalds-restaurants-in-russia-reopen-under-new-brand

The impact of sanctions here seems to be that profits from McDonalds will no longer flow to the West, but be kept in Russia.

https://slaynews.com/news/wh-officials-sink-joe-biden-privately-admit-collateral-damage-from-russian-sanctions-has-been-wider-than-expected-exacerbating-inflation-and-worsening-food-insecurity/

White House officials are leaking about America’s mounting economic crises, admitting privately that Democrat President Joe Biden’s sanctions against Russia are “exacerbating inflation and worsening food insecurity.”

Biden admin insiders are reportedly raising concerns the sanctions on Russia are causing massive “collateral damage” to the American and the world economy.

Worryingly, the White House officials say Biden’s miscalculation and bungled rollout of the sanctions may lead to a worldwide famine that will destabilize the entire world.

Saagar Enjeti, co-Host of “Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar,” revealed the growing panic from within Biden’s team.

“White House officials privately admit ‘the collateral damage’ from Russia sanctions ‘has been wider than expected’,” Enjeti said.

Bitcoin says

@gabbar
How would you feel about this plan: The US could utilize their best special forces to deploy a covert team into Moscow. Similar to what we did with other terrorist in previous years.
That special force team would take out Putin, some of the generals and maybe some oligarchs.

We would then plant US trained leaders in Moscow so that Moscow becomes controllable for the US. The way i think about this is Russia could become a special exporter of goods to the US at special conditions (reduced pricing) as a pay-back for the US efforts.

I hear you. Its wishful thinking. We gotta get over 2022 without widespread chaos first.

gabbar says

Bitcoin says

@gabbar
How would you feel about this plan: The US could utilize their best special forces to deploy a covert team into Moscow. Similar to what we did with other terrorist in previous years.
That special force team would take out Putin, some of the generals and maybe some oligarchs.

We would then plant US trained leaders in Moscow so that Moscow becomes controllable for the US. The way i think about this is Russia could become a special exporter of goods to the US at special conditions (reduced pricing) as a pay-back for the US efforts.

I hear you. Its wishful thinking. We gotta get over 2022 without widespread chaos first.

Didn't Kennedy try that with Castro - like 100 times?

Russian McDonalds replacement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXs1f44DFcI

Very informative thread on Rubble's trajectory, structure of Ruscist economy/exports/imports, sanctions impact and, BTW, who armed who for this war:

https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1537122850745815040?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Ruble hits 7-year highs against Euro.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/rouble-firms-heading-back-towards-multi-year-highs-vs-dollar-euro-2022-05-23/

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-to-fire-up-coal-plants-as-russia-turns-down-the-gas/a-62182321

Germany to fire up coal plants as Russia turns down the gas
As Russia reduces its supply of natural gas, Economy Minister Robert Habeck has said Germany must curb its usage. Otherwise, things "could get tight in winter," he said.

Patrick says

Germany to fire up coal plants

worse than that, this is the most dirty and inefficient type of coal, so-called lignite. Thank you greenies who shut down clean, carbon neutral, and cheap nuclear power! They must be Russian agents!

President Joe Biden's continued dismissal of domestic energy sources during his first year in office likely played right into the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has allegedly been providing covert active support to "green energy" activist groups around the globe for years in a bid to keep the U.S. — and, more importantly, Europe — addicted to Russian gas.

Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned in 2014 that Putin was funding certain "green" groups through far-left organizations as part of the Kremlin's "sophisticated information and disinformation operations."

These Russian subversives targeted hydraulic fracturing — fracking — which is used to extract oil and gas from otherwise difficult deposits. Putin condemned fracking in 2011, saying it was "associated with significant environmental risks, in particular the hazard of surface and underground water contamination with chemicals applied in the production process."

The Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (RLS), based in Berlin, has advanced Putin's agenda on both sides of the Atlantic. It opposes fracking in the U.S. and in Europe and has endorsed the "Green New Deal." It also backed climate action and supported ending the Keystone XL pipeline.

But many RLS leaders previously worked for the dreaded East German secret police, the Stasi, or were leaders of the Cold War-era East German Communist Party. Stasi informants played a key role in promoting the climate of fear that kept East German society under control.

https://weber.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=1208

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61861849

Russia has become China's biggest supplier of oil as the country sold discounted crude to Beijing amid sanctions over the Ukraine war.

Imports of Russian oil rose by 55% from a year earlier to a record level in May, displacing Saudi Arabia as China's biggest provider.

Patrick says

Germany to fire up coal plants

The supply of oil on the international markets has not really changed.

Russia is exporting about 1 million barrels per day less and Biden is pulling about 1 million barrels per day out of our Strategic Petroleum Reserves. Everything else has been about the same.

Biden is pulling the reserves because he thinks that lowers the price. There is no shortage of oil as Russia can easily export the extra million barrels per day if Biden stops reducing our Reserves. Basically he is reducing our Reserves when there are no supply problems.

Next week, Biden is going to go to Saudi Arabia and make his handlers look even more incompetent by sucking MBS's dick while asking for more oil to be produced. It will be hard for MBS to get the Alzheimer patient to understand that the world is fully supplied with oil. That the increase in oil prices has everything to do with Joe's fucked up policies.

Joe has lost all trust from the Saudis by kissing Khomeini's butt and allowing Iran to exceed the treaty's uranium enrichment quotas (there never has been any treaty on Iran's part based on Iran's actions) and allowing Tehran more access to funding. Joe may go off the deep end and threaten to seize Saudi's treasuries by allowing Congress to enact anti-OPEC legislation that overrides soveriegn immunity. If the US can freeze Russia's treasuries and seize Russian billionaire's assets, we can do the same to Saudi's assets. Besides there needs to be reparations for global warming--- right?

MBS will pat Joe's head and give like $100 million to Hunter's charity (same as he did for Ivanka) and call it a day.

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/russia-is-sidestepping-american-oil-sanctions/

The Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, an organization in Finland, calculates that Russia’s export prices for fossil fuels in general are about 60 percent higher than they were last year. Asked by lawmakers whether Moscow was raking in more money from oil sales now than in the months before the war, Amos Hochstein, the Biden administration’s envoy for energy affairs, wasn’t cute with his answer: “I can’t deny that.”

Misc says

Joe may go off the deep end and threaten to seize Saudi's treasuries by allowing Congress to enact anti-OPEC legislation that overrides soveriegn immunity. If the US can freeze Russia's treasuries and seize Russian billionaire's assets, we can do the same to Saudi's assets.

True, Biden has destroyed trust in US financial institutions kind of like Trudeau destroyed trust in Canadian banks, only on a vastly larger scale.

Patrick says

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/russia-is-sidestepping-american-oil-sanctions/

The Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, an organization in Finland, calculates that Russia’s export prices for fossil fuels in general are about 60 percent higher than they were last year. Asked by lawmakers whether Moscow was raking in more money from oil sales now than in the months before the war, Amos Hochstein, the Biden administration’s envoy for energy affairs, wasn’t cute with his answer: “I can’t deny that.”

Yep, they are getting shitload of dollars and nothing to spend them on: they need aircraft parts, car parts, chips, night vision, engines, compressors, etc. and can't buy shit. So basically they are getting all that dough for safekeeping until the time to pay reparations comes.

And to these who cheer the Rubble going up against dollar: they do it because very shmart Russian population has always used exchange rate as a measure of the economy's health. It kinda worked when the Rubble was allowed to float free. But does it work now with all the restrictions in place? Think about it: strong Rubble kills the exporters. Why? Easy: if you are a producer of some gadget and used to get 70 Rubbles for every dollar you get in, now you're getting only 53. Meaning you have less money to pay to your workers and suppliers while even OFFICIAL inflation rate for the year is at 17%. In the past when inflation would rise the Rubble would tank against the dollar so you would be able to keep up with rising costs, but not this time, because capital controls and import restrictions have pushed it up in the opposite direction. It's a great facade with nothig but rotting shit behind it.

This is why exporter countries like Japan and China working hard to keep their currencies low, not letting them go up to the natural balance, let alone jacking them up to artifical hights.

Eric Holder says

And to these who cheer the Rubble going up against dollar:

I don't think they let population exchange more than 10K USD at a time. So it is kinda similar to Soviet times, when they sold you $100 for 80 rubles, but if you needed more, you had to buy in black market where $1 was 4 rubles.

Bd6r says

Eric Holder says

And to these who cheer the Rubble going up against dollar:

I don't think they let population exchange more than 10K USD at a time. So it is kinda similar to Soviet times, when they sold you $100 for 80 rubles, but if you needed more, you had to buy in black market where $1 was 4 rubles.

Also if you used USD as an inflation hedge (which was the SOP in ex-USSR countries for the last 30 years) you hedge is now broken: the inflation is 17% AND USD you hold cost LESS in Rubbles, i.e. you're double fucked.

https://www.reuters.com/business/exclusive-indias-top-cement-maker-paying-russian-coal-chinese-yuan-2022-06-29/

NEW DELHI, June 29 (Reuters) - India's biggest cement producer, UltraTech Cement (ULTC.NS), is importing a cargo of Russian coal and paying using Chinese yuan, according to an Indian customs document reviewed by Reuters, a rare payment method that traders say could become more common.

UltraTech is bringing in 157,000 tonnes of coal from Russian producer SUEK that loaded on the bulk carrier MV Mangas from the Russian Far East port of Vanino, the document showed. It cites an invoice dated June 5 that values the cargo at 172,652,900 yuan ($25.81 million).

Russian blogger, g-translated (https://taxfree.livejournal.com/3626450.html):

A shocking and unpleasant event has taken place. Out of some oversight, Rosstat released statistics for 2021 and 2022 yesterday (https://t.co/GzfRR7lzuo). Given that in recent months, and you can guess why, almost all statistical data on the economy in Russia is a secret. And this released report confirms your guess. There's a fucker. Not even like that. THERE IS A COMPLETE FUCK.

So what do we learn from this data. We see the dynamic development of the Russian economy during the reign of the late Putin, and during the 4 months of a special military grand patriotic operation in Ukraine. The numbers are amazing. It seems that the supreme power has spat on the economy and is rushing forward like there is no tomorrow. Judge for yourself - data May 2021 compared to May 2022
During this period, the change in production by May 2022 year-on-year

Passenger cars: -96.7% (3,700 vehicles)
Trucks: -39.3%
ICE engines: -57%
Pass. wagons: -59.8%
Freight wagons: -51.8%
Fiberoptics cables: -80.8%
Refrigerators: -58.1%
Washing machines: -59.2%
AC motors: -49.9%
Elevators: -34.7%
Excavators: -60%

In May, 3.7 thousand cars were produced in the Russian Federation, while in January 2022 there were 95 thousand of them, in February - 108 thousand. In March, when the "special operation" was already underway, and the sanctions had just begun, production for the first time collapsed - up to 40.8 thousand cars.

Retail Sales Turnover Drop by 4Q 2021 - 45% This is a pure smash. Who authorized the release of such figures, I do not know

RUSSIAN ECONOMY IS GETTING STRONGER BY DAY!!! WHO NEED CARS, REFRIGERATORS AND WASHING MACHINES WHEN YOU CAN DRIVE OIL, STORE YOUR FOOD IN OIL AND WASH YOUR CLOTHES IN GAS!!!!

Eric Holder says

At a price...

"Germany revives coal to counter Russian gas"
https://www.dw.com/en/why-germany-is-reviving-dirty-coal-to-counter-russian-gas-cut/a-62195008

Just last year the 4th Reich that runs the EU insisted that Poland and Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, etc. cut drastically back on coal mining and coal power generation.

Trump was right again.

AmericanKulak says

Eric Holder says

At a price...

"Germany revives coal to counter Russian gas"
https://www.dw.com/en/why-germany-is-reviving-dirty-coal-to-counter-russian-gas-cut/a-62195008

Just last year the 4th Reich that runs the EU insisted that Poland and Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, etc. cut drastically back on coal mining and coal power generation.

Trump was right again.

OMG, WE"RE ALL GONNA DIE FROM THE GLOBULL WORMING NOW!!!!!

https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/spicy-takes-on-global-energy-and

US foreign policy has basically become “i’m going to pay you to watch me punch myself in the face until you give up!”

AmericanKulak says

Eat local cheese, drink local beer, and buy the same audio equipment from China that's on Amazon USA

Personally I would go for the Soviet era Tube electronics over anything on Amazon.

Tenpoundbass says

Personally I would go for the Soviet era Tube electronics over anything on Amazon.

You don't know what are you talking about. I have a Russian co-worker who once told a story about a TV set his family had when he was growing up: the fucking thing had to be run w/o the rear cover because it would randomly quit every half and hour or so and in order to bring it back to life they had to hit one of the tubes with something (usually a slipper). He said they were running it like that for more then a decade because they either had no money to buy a new one, couldn't buy a new one because of shortages, or both.

Russia is so advanced technologically (thanks to it's BEST EDUMACATION SYSTEM IN THE WORLD, no less) that Putler now has to personally travel to fucking Iran and beg them (IRAN, KARL!!!) to give him some UAVs for his very successful "speshual militari opereyshun" which is "going as planned":

Russian President Vladimir Putin will travel to Iran next week amid reports that Tehran could supply weapons-capable drones to Russia to use in its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

...

An Iranian Foreign Minister spokesperson did not deny the claims Tuesday.

“Iran’s cooperation with Russia in some sophisticated technologies dates to before the Russia-Ukraine war,” said spokesperson Nasser Kanaani. “There has not been any special development in this regard recently.”
...

https://nypost.com/2022/07/12/putin-to-visit-iran-next-week-for-possible-weapons-drones/

Russian blog (g-translated):

According to Iranian media, Iran has signed an agreement with Russia on the supply of parts and equipment for Russia-owned Western-made aircraft, as well as the repair and maintenance of aircraft.

This, we will say directly, is a complete clusterfuck.

Iranian civil aviation is one of the most unsafe in the world. The main problem is just the lack of spare parts for aircraft and a huge number of counterfeit or heavily worn imported components and parts of extremely low quality. Due to technical problems, 50 percent of the existing 386 Iranian aircraft is on the ground. The newest Iranian Airbus A-330 aircraft were produced in 1992.

The number of air accidents in Iran is declining, but this is due to a decrease in the volume of air transportation itself, in specific figures, Iranian security is at the level of the wildest African countries.

And now it is Iran that will help out the Russian aviation industry. It is impossible to think of a better advertisement for the unconditional refusal to fly on Russian aircraft.

https://el-murid.livejournal.com/

As one of the largest research organisations in Europe, the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) is committed to engaging in international cooperation for the benefit of society and industry. DLR employs staff from 96 countries. They stand for the peaceful coexistence of all nations and peoples. Violence should never be a means to achieve objectives of any kind. We therefore view the developments in Ukraine with grave concern and condemn Russia's hostile actions.

DLR and the German Space Agency at DLR have been cooperating with Russian institutions on a number of research projects, in some cases with the participation of other German research organisations and universities, and international partners.

Against the backdrop of the aggressive attack on Ukraine, the DLR Executive Board is taking the following measures:

All collaboration activities with Russian institutions on current projects or projects in the planning stage will be terminated.
There will be no new projects or initiatives with institutions in Russia.

Where necessary, DLR will enter into coordination with other national and international partners.

https://www.dlr.de/content/en/articles/news/2022/01/20220303_dlr-ceases-bilateral-cooperation-with-russia.html

Due to the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, the Max Planck Society has currently suspended its scientific collaborations at the institutional level.

https://www.mpg.de/16495362/russia-cis

Actually, the Russian Economy Is Imploding

Nine myths about the effects of sanctions and business retreats, debunked.

Five months into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there remains a startling lack of understanding by many Western policymakers and commentators of the economic dimensions of President Vladimir Putin’s invasion and what it has meant for Russia’s economic positioning both domestically and globally.

Far from being ineffective or disappointing, as many have argued, international sanctions and voluntary business retreats have exerted a devastating effect over Russia’s economy. The deteriorating economy has served as a powerful if underappreciated complement to the deteriorating political landscape facing Putin.

That these misunderstandings persist is not entirely surprising given the lack of available economic data. In fact, many of the excessively sanguine Russian economic analyses, forecasts, and projections that have proliferated in recent months share a crucial methodological flaw: These analyses draw most, if not all, of their underlying evidence from periodic economic releases by the Russian government itself. Numbers released by the Kremlin have long been held to be largely if not always credible, but there are certain problems.

First, the Kremlin’s economic releases are becoming increasingly cherry-picked—partial and incomplete, selectively tossing out unfavorable metrics. The Russian government has progressively withheld an increasing number of key statistics that, prior to the war, were updated on a monthly basis, including all foreign trade data. Among these are statistics relating to exports and imports, particularly with Europe; oil and gas monthly output data; commodity export quantities; capital inflows and outflows; financial statements of major companies, which used to be released on a mandatory basis by companies themselves; central bank monetary base data; foreign direct investment data; lending and loan origination data; and other data related to the availability of credit. Even Rosaviatsiya, the federal air transport agency, abruptly ceased publishing data on airline and airport passenger volumes.

Since the Kremlin stopped releasing updated numbers, constraining the availability of economic data for researchers to draw upon, many excessively rosy economic forecasts have irrationally extrapolated economic releases from the early days of the invasion, when sanctions and the business retreat had not taken full effect. Even those favorable statistics that have been released are dubious, given the political pressure the Kremlin has exerted to corrupt statistical integrity.

Mindful of the dangers of accepting Kremlin statistics at face value, our team of experts, using private Russian-language and direct data sources including high-frequency consumer data, cross-channel checks, releases from Russia’s international trade partners, and data mining of complex shipping data, have released one of the first comprehensive economic analyses measuring Russian current economic activity five months into the invasion, with contributions from Franek Sokolowski, Michal Wyrebkowski, Mateusz Kasprowicz, Michal Boron, Yash Bhansali, and Ryan Vakil. From our analysis, it becomes clear: Business retreats and sanctions are crushing the Russian economy in the short term and the long term. Based on our research, we are able to challenge nine widely held but misleading myths about Russia’s supposed economic resilience.""

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/07/22/russia-economy-sanctions-myths-ruble-business/

Myth 1: Russia can redirect its gas exports and sell to Asia in lieu of Europe.

This is one of Putin’s favorite and most misleading talking points, doubling down on a much-hyped pivot to the east. But natural gas is not a fungible export for Russia. Less than 10 percent of Russia’s gas capacity is liquefied natural gas, so Russian gas exports remain reliant on a system of fixed pipelines carrying piped gas. The vast majority of Russia’s pipelines flow toward Europe; those pipelines, which originate in western Russia, are not connectable to a separate nascent network of pipelines that link Eastern Siberia to Asia, which contains only 10 percent of the capacity of the European pipeline network. Indeed, the 16.5 billion cubic meters of gas exported by Russia to China last year represented less than 10 percent of the 170 billion cubic meters of natural gas sent by Russia to Europe.

Long-planned Asian pipeline projects currently under construction are still years away from becoming operational, much less hastily initiated new projects, and financing of these costly gas pipeline projects also now puts Russia at a significant disadvantage.

Overall, Russia needs world markets far more than the world needs Russian supplies; Europe received 83 percent of Russian gas exports but drew only 46 percent of its own supply from Russia in 2021. With limited pipeline connectivity to Asia, more Russian gas stays in the ground; indeed, the Russian state energy company Gazprom’s published data shows production is already down more than 35 percent year-on-year this month. For all Putin’s energy blackmail of Europe, he is doing so at significant financial cost to his own coffers*.

*) Putin is a stupid cunt.

Myth 2: Since oil is more fungible than gas, Putin can just sell more to Asia.

Russian oil exports now also reflect Putin’s diminished economic and geopolitical clout. Recognizing that Russia has nowhere else to turn, and mindful that they have more purchasing options than Russia has buyers, China and India are driving an unprecedented approximately $35 discount on Russian Urals oil purchases, even though the historical spread has never ranged beyond $5—not even during the 2014 Crimean crisis—and at times Russian oil has actually sold at a premium to Brent and WTI oil. Furthermore, it takes Russian oil tankers an average of 35 days to reach East Asia, versus two to seven days to reach Europe, which is why historically only 39 percent of Russian oil has gone to Asia versus the 53 percent destined for Europe.

This margin pressure is felt keenly by Russia, as it remains a relatively high-cost producer relative to the other major oil producers, with some of the highest break-evens of any producing country. The Russian upstream industry has also long been reliant on Western technology, which combined with the loss of both Russia’s erstwhile primary market and Russia’s diminished economic clout leads to even the Russian energy ministry revising its projections of long-term oil output downward. There is no doubt that, as many energy experts predicted, Russia is losing its status as an energy superpower, with an irrevocable deterioration in its strategic economic positioning as an erstwhile reliable supplier of commodities.*

*) Putin is a stupid cunt.

Myth 3: Russia is making up for lost Western businesses and imports by replacing them with imports from Asia.

Imports play an important role within Russia’s domestic economy, consisting of about 20 percent of Russian GDP, and, despite Putin’s bellicose delusions of total self-sufficiency, the country needs crucial inputs, parts, and technology from hesitant trade partners. Despite some lingering supply chain leakiness, Russian imports have collapsed by over 50 percent in recent months.

China has not moved into the Russian market to the extent that many feared; in fact, according to the most recent monthly releases from the Chinese General Administration of Customs, Chinese exports to Russia plummeted by more than 50 percent from the start of the year to April, falling from over $8.1 billion monthly to $3.8 billion. Considering China exports seven times as much to the United States than Russia, it appears that even Chinese companies are more concerned about running afoul of U.S. sanctions than of losing marginal positions in the Russian market, reflecting Russia’s weak economic hand with its global trade partners*.

*) Putin is Xi's bitch