Putinin Venäjä

[Masturbaani]

Rappukäytävä olisi myös oma valintani jos haluaisin itseni kuolleeksi. Saavat sitten naapurit nopeasti soitettua apua ja elvytettyä mikäli epäonnistun...eiku

On se yksinasuvalta kohteliaampaa tappaa itsensä (/tulla tapetuksi) rappukäytävään kuin omaan asuuntoonsa ja mädäntyä siellä viikkotolkulla aiheuttaen hajuhaittoja naapureille.

Huomaavaisinta on tappaa ittensä jonkun pressun alle ei niin syrjään mut ei niin keskelle toriakaan, pressun päälle eka heippalappu että "TÄÄL ON SIT IHMISEN RAATO, SOITELKAAPA JELPPIÄ ENNEN KU MÄTÄNEE JA HAISOO T: RAATO"

[38911 BASIC BYTES FREE]

Jahas, Venäjän oikeusministeriö vaatii sit ton Jewish Agency for Israel -lafkan toimintojen pysäyttämistä Venäjällä (siis se organisaatio, joka koordinoi juutalaisten migraatiomahdollisuuksia Israeliin). En voi nähdä tässä mitään sudenkuoppia... Tää on vissiin israelilaisessa mediassa jo aika laajalti noteerattu.

[Marxin Ryyppy]

Jahas, Venäjän oikeusministeriö vaatii sit ton Jewish Agency for Israel -lafkan toimintojen pysäyttämistä Venäjällä (siis se organisaatio, joka koordinoi juutalaisten migraatiomahdollisuuksia Israeliin). En voi nähdä tässä mitään sudenkuoppia... Tää on vissiin israelilaisessa mediassa jo aika laajalti noteerattu.

Israel aikoo lähettää delegaation suoriltaan.

Mutta joo, oli Israelin mediassa ja muuallakin

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-to ... y-offices/

Israel to send team to Moscow as Russia threatens to shutter Jewish Agency offices

Lapid says interministerial delegation will head to Russia next week to ensure that organization’s ‘important work’ helping Jews immigrate is not impeded

Israel will send a delegation to Moscow next week to meet with Russian officials over the Kremlin’s intention to shut down the Jewish Agency in the country, the Prime Minister’s Office said Thursday.

Earlier in the day, the Russian justice ministry filed an appeal with a Moscow district court calling for the “dissolution” of the Jewish Agency’s operations in the country.

Prime Minister Yair Lapid held a “situational assessment” with officials from the Foreign Ministry and the National Security Council about the matter on Thursday, his office said.

“During this situational assessment, it was decided to dispatch a delegation [with representatives from] the Prime Minister’s Office, Foreign Ministry, Justice Ministry and Immigration and Absorption Ministry next week in order to ensure the continued operations of the Jewish Agency in Russia,” the PMO said in a statement.

A follow-up meeting will be held about the matter on Sunday, Lapid’s office added.

“The Jewish community in Russia is deeply connected to Israel and its importance comes up in every diplomatic conversation with the Russian leadership. We will continue to act through diplomatic channels so the important work of the Jewish Agency is not impeded,” Lapid said.

Late last month, Russian authorities informed the Jewish Agency, which facilitates and encourages Jewish immigration to Israel, that they planned to take legal action against the quasi-governmental organization unless it made a number of difficult demands — which it did not intend to accede to.

Spoiler:

On Thursday, this shifted from words and warnings to practical steps, as the local justice ministry filed its appeal to the Basmanny court in Moscow.

“The court received a lawsuit filed by the main department of the Ministry of Justice in Moscow requesting the dissolution of the… Jewish Agency,” the court said in a statement that was carried by the Russian outlet RIA.

Ekaterina Buravtsova, a spokeswoman for the court, was quoted by Russian agencies saying the request was made after legal violations, without providing further details, according to the Interfax news agency.

The preliminary hearing of the appeal is scheduled to be held on July 28.

The aggressive posturing by the Russian government is seen as highly unusual, coming in apparent retaliation for Israel’s stance on Moscow’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine, as well as for Israel’s ongoing campaign against Iran in Syria, which Russia at times opposes.

Apparently seeking to downplay concerns, the Jewish Agency said in a statement that this was only a “preliminary hearing” and a “continuation of the legal process” that was already underway.

“As we have previously stated, we are not making any comment during the course of the legal proceedings,” the organization said.

A source within the organization also told The Times of Israel earlier this month that the new Russian demands were not expected to force the Jewish Agency to entirely halt its operations in the country and were more of a “nuisance” than a legitimate threat to its activities.

The Jewish Agency has maintained throughout the Russian campaign against it that it is continuing to operate as normal in Russia for the time being.

Israeli ministers railed against the Russian justice ministry’s court filing on Thursday, with one saying explicitly that it was tied to Israel’s support of Ukraine.

“Russian Jews will not be held hostage by the war in Ukraine. The attempt to punish the Jewish Agency for Israel’s stance on the war is deplorable and offensive,” said Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai in a statement.

“The Jews of Russia cannot be detached from their historical and emotional connection to the State of Israel,” he said.

Immigration and Absorption Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata said she was working with Prime Minister Yair Lapid and the Foreign Ministry to address the matter.

“There is no justifiable reason for halting the [Jewish] Agency’s operations, and there are therefore diplomatic efforts underway to clarify the situation and resolve the matter accordingly,” Tamano-Shata said.

“As we have known how to cooperate with Russian authorities for many decades, I have no doubt that we will find appropriate solutions,” she added.

Last week, the Foreign Ministry began officially intervening on behalf of the Jewish Agency, having Israeli Ambassador to Russia Alexander Ben Zvi speak with the country’s deputy foreign minister, Mikhail Bogdanov, about the issue, a source familiar with the matter said Thursday.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, was confirming a report by the Walla news site about the Israeli government intervention.

In the meeting, Bogdanov denied that the steps against the Jewish Agency were a form of diplomatic retaliation and said he would look into the issue, which Israeli officials saw as a potentially positive development though they remained skeptical, according to that report.

The saga has evoked memories of the plight of Jews in the Soviet Union, who were barred for many years from immigrating to Israel and from openly practicing their faith.

The Jewish Agency, an unofficial arm of the Israeli government, is tasked with overseeing and encouraging immigration to Israel. People looking to immigrate to Israel must submit applications through the Jewish Agency. The organization also runs educational programs and a host of other activities.

To facilitate these efforts, the organization maintains offices in many countries and cities around the world, including Moscow. In recent years, tens of thousands of Russian citizens have immigrated to Israel, with roughly 10,000 arriving just since the Russian invasion began in late February.

[Porilaine]

Jahas, Venäjän oikeusministeriö vaatii sit ton Jewish Agency for Israel -lafkan toimintojen pysäyttämistä Venäjällä (siis se organisaatio, joka koordinoi juutalaisten migraatiomahdollisuuksia Israeliin). En voi nähdä tässä mitään sudenkuoppia... Tää on vissiin israelilaisessa mediassa jo aika laajalti noteerattu.

No ei toisaalta yllättävää. Oman kuopan kaivamisesta kun on tullut Venäjän ainoa tehtävä viime aikoina. Todella näemmä haluavat Israelin vihollisekseen, toisaalta toki yrittävät padota vuotoa sinne suuntaan...

[Lana Ctrl-Alt-Del Rey]

Taloudesta Foreign Policyssä tommonen piitkä juttu:

Actually, the Russian Economy Is Imploding
Nine myths about the effects of sanctions and business retreats, debunked.
By Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, the Lester Crown professor in management practice and a senior associate dean at the Yale School of Management, and Steven Tian, the director of research at the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute.

JULY 22, 2022, 5:56 PM

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.

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.

[Lana Ctrl-Alt-Del Rey]

Jatkuu...

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.

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.

Myth 4: Russian domestic consumption and consumer health remain strong.

Some of the sectors most dependent on international supply chains have been hit with debilitating inflation around 40-60 percent—on extremely low sales volumes. For example, foreign car sales in Russia fell by an average of 95 percent across major car companies, with sales ground to a complete halt.

Amid supply shortages, soaring prices, and fading consumer sentiment, it is hardly surprising that Russian Purchasing Managers’ Index readings—which capture how purchasing managers are viewing the economy—have plunged, particularly for new orders, alongside plunges in consumer spending and retail sales data by around 20 percent year-over-year. Other readings of high-frequency data such as e-commerce sales within Yandex and same-store traffic at retail sites across Moscow reinforce steep declines in consumer spending and sales, no matter what the Kremlin says.

Myth 5: Global businesses have not really pulled out of Russia, and business, capital, and talent flight from Russia are overstated.

Global businesses represent around 12 percent of Russia’s workforce (5 million workers), and, as a result of the business retreat, over 1,000 companies representing around 40 percent of Russia’s GDP have curtailed operations in the country, reversing three decades’ worth of foreign investment and buttressing unprecedented simultaneous capital and talent flight in a mass exodus of 500,000 individuals, many of whom are exactly the highly educated, technically skilled workers Russia cannot afford to lose. Even the mayor of Moscow has acknowledged an expected massive loss of jobs as businesses go through the process of fully exiting.

[Lana Ctrl-Alt-Del Rey]

...loput:

Myth 6: Putin is running a budget surplus thanks to high energy prices.

Russia is actually on pace to run a budget deficit this year equivalent to 2 percent of GDP, according to its own finance minister—one of the only times the budget has been in deficit in years, despite high energy prices—thanks to Putin’s unsustainable spending spree; on top of dramatic increases in military spending, Putin is resorting to patently unsustainable, dramatic fiscal and monetary intervention, including a laundry list of Kremlin pet projects, all of which have contributed to the money supply nearly doubling in Russia since the invasion began. Putin’s reckless spending is clearly putting Kremlin finances under strain.

Myth 7: Putin has hundreds of billions of dollars in rainy day funds, so the Kremlin’s finances are unlikely to be strained anytime soon.

The most obvious challenge facing Putin’s rainy day funds is the fact that of his around $600 billion in foreign exchange reserves, accumulated from years’ worth of oil and gas revenues, $300 billion is frozen and out of reach with allied countries across the United States, Europe, and Japan restricting access. There have been some calls to seize this $300 billion to finance the reconstruction of Ukraine.

Putin’s remaining foreign exchange reserves are decreasing at an alarming rate, by around $75 billion since the start of the war. Critics point out that official foreign exchange reserves of the central bank technically can only decrease due to international sanctions placed on the central bank, and they suggest that nonsanctioned financial institutions such as Gazprombank could still accumulate such reserves in place of the central bank. While this may be technically true, there is simultaneously no evidence to suggest that Gazprombank is actually accumulating any reserves given sizable strain on its own loan book.

Furthermore, although the finance ministry had planned to reinstate a long-standing Russian budgetary rule that surplus revenue from oil and gas sales should be channeled into the sovereign wealth fund, Putin axed this proposal as well as accompanying guidelines directing how and where the National Wealth Fund can be spent—as Finance Minister Anton Siluanov floated the idea of withdrawing funds from the National Wealth Fund equivalent to a third of the entire fund to pay for this deficit this year. If Russia is running a budget deficit requiring the drawdown of a third of its sovereign wealth fund when oil and gas revenues are still relatively strong, all signs indicate a Kremlin that may be running out of money much faster than conventionally appreciated.

Myth 8: The ruble is the world’s strongest-performing currency this year.

One of Putin’s favorite propaganda talking points, the appreciation of the ruble is an artificial reflection of unprecedented, draconian capital control—which rank among the most restrictive of any in the world. The restrictions make it effectively impossible for any Russian to legally purchase dollars or even access a majority of their dollar deposits, while artificially inflating demand through forced purchases by major exporters—all of which remain largely in place today.

The official exchange rate is misleading, anyhow, as the ruble is, unsurprisingly, trading at dramatically diminished volumes compared to before the invasion on low liquidity. By many reports, much of this erstwhile trading has migrated to unofficial ruble black markets. Even the Bank of Russia has admitted that the exchange rate is a reflection more of government policies and a blunt expression of the country’s trade balance rather than freely tradeable liquid foreign exchange markets.

Myth 9: The implementation of sanctions and business retreats are now largely done, and no more economic pressure is needed.  

Russia’s economy has been severely damaged, but the business retreats and sanctions applied against Russia are incomplete. Even with the deterioration in Russia’s exports positioning, it continues to draw too much oil and gas revenue from the sanctions carveout, which sustains Putin’s extravagant domestic spending and obfuscates structural economic weaknesses. The Kyiv School of Economics and Yermak-McFaul International Working Group have led the way in proposing additional sanctions measures across individual sanctions, energy sanctions, and financial sanctions, led by former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul and the experts Tymofiy Mylovanov, Nataliia Shapoval, and Andriy Boytsun. Looking ahead, there is no path out of economic oblivion for Russia as long as the allied countries remain unified in maintaining and increasing sanctions pressure against Russia.

Defeatist headlines arguing that Russia’s economy has bounced back are simply not factual—the facts are that, by any metric and on any level, the Russian economy is reeling, and now is not the time to step on the brakes.

[Liskomies]

Sotsissa vähän tulvii...



Russian #Sochi goes under water. This is what happens when drainage areas are sold for construction, and no one has been worried about the problem with stormwater for years.

Asiasta varoittaneet ympäristönsuojelijat saivat kai aikanaan OMOMin pampusta, että oppisivat olemaan.

[Suomalainen tilauspukki]

Just oli iltapulussa että kun venäläisillä ei ole varaa/eivät pääse split Turkkiin niin ovat sitten matkustaneet esim Sotsiin. Sielläkin nyt tulvii ja vituiks meni sekin.

[38911 BASIC BYTES FREE]

Se mua kyllä vähän ihmetyttää, että mikä pakko Suomen on myöntää Venäjän kansalaisille turistiviisumeita. Rajahan on nyt taas auki ihan perinteiseen malliin.

Tulkoot turvapaikanhakijoina jos pois haluavat, mutta ei tässä ny ehkä hirveesti houkuta tehdä tästä maasta pakotteiden alaisten tuotteiden harmaavientikanavaa.

[Trollface-mies]

Se mua kyllä vähän ihmetyttää, että mikä pakko Suomen on myöntää Venäjän kansalaisille turistiviisumeita. Rajahan on nyt taas auki ihan perinteiseen malliin.

Tulkoot turvapaikanhakijoina jos pois haluavat, mutta ei tässä ny ehkä hirveesti houkuta tehdä tästä maasta pakotteiden alaisten tuotteiden harmaavientikanavaa.

Melkeen sanoisin, että tässä on tää suomalaisen politiikan perinteinen: ei vaan tultu aatelleeks.

Ja sitten kun asia on akuutti ja päällä, niin kaikki poliitikot jotka vois asialle jotain tehdä on lomilla.

[Porilaine]

Toisaalta tässä on nyt se hyvä juttu suomalaisessa keskustelukulttuurissa, että nyt kun media on ottanut tästä kiinni, se tulee kirjoittamaan tästä pitkään eikä lopeta, ennen kuin raja sulkeutuu venäläisiltä turisteilta.

[Trollface-mies]

Toisaalta tässä on nyt se hyvä juttu suomalaisessa keskustelukulttuurissa, että nyt kun media on ottanut tästä kiinni, se tulee kirjoittamaan tästä pitkään eikä lopeta, ennen kuin raja sulkeutuu venäläisiltä turisteilta.

Meillähän muuten rutiinilla evätään turistiviisumeita Afrikan maista tänne saapuvilta ihmisiltä, peruste yleensä lähinnä se, ettei ole mitään takuita, että niistä päästäisiin eroon. Tuli nyt mieleen se yhden KuPS-futarin perheen tapaus.

Vähän ihmetyttää ettei byrokraatit keksineet mitään sopivaa mielivaltaista perustetta käytettäväksi itänaapurin tapauksessa. Tai no ei oikeastaan ihmetytä, suojaväri + suomettuneisuus.

[Salajulkku]

Toisaalta tässä on nyt se hyvä juttu suomalaisessa keskustelukulttuurissa, että nyt kun media on ottanut tästä kiinni, se tulee kirjoittamaan tästä pitkään eikä lopeta, ennen kuin raja sulkeutuu venäläisiltä turisteilta.

Meillähän muuten rutiinilla evätään turistiviisumeita Afrikan maista tänne saapuvilta ihmisiltä, peruste yleensä lähinnä se, ettei ole mitään takuita, että niistä päästäisiin eroon. Tuli nyt mieleen se yhden KuPS-futarin perheen tapaus.

Vähän ihmetyttää ettei byrokraatit keksineet mitään sopivaa mielivaltaista perustetta käytettäväksi itänaapurin tapauksessa. Tai no ei oikeastaan ihmetytä, suojaväri + suomettuneisuus.

Ettekö ajattele lappeenrantalaisia ja imatralaisia itkeviä lapsia? Vuosia on jo odotettu venäläisten paluuta.

[Trollface-mies]

Toisaalta tässä on nyt se hyvä juttu suomalaisessa keskustelukulttuurissa, että nyt kun media on ottanut tästä kiinni, se tulee kirjoittamaan tästä pitkään eikä lopeta, ennen kuin raja sulkeutuu venäläisiltä turisteilta.

Meillähän muuten rutiinilla evätään turistiviisumeita Afrikan maista tänne saapuvilta ihmisiltä, peruste yleensä lähinnä se, ettei ole mitään takuita, että niistä päästäisiin eroon. Tuli nyt mieleen se yhden KuPS-futarin perheen tapaus.

Vähän ihmetyttää ettei byrokraatit keksineet mitään sopivaa mielivaltaista perustetta käytettäväksi itänaapurin tapauksessa. Tai no ei oikeastaan ihmetytä, suojaväri + suomettuneisuus.

Ettekö ajattele lappeenrantalaisia ja imatralaisia itkeviä lapsia? Vuosia on jo odotettu venäläisten paluuta.

Satakunnan Kansassa oli yks päivä tekstari että jos halpa bensa niin kovasti miellyttää niin voi siirtää rajaa 15 kilsaa tännepäin niin Imatralla ja Leprassa saavat nauttia ihannevaltakunnastaan.

Tekstarin voi tietysti tuomita länsisuomalaisena ylenkatseena ja mahdollisesti silkkana kateutena kun tässä ei ole halpaa pumppua nurkilla, mutta olen tässä nyt muutamia päiviä nauttinut erään 7,5k äänisaaliin kuitanneen eteläkarjalaisen kansanedustajan huomiosta joten en jaksa määräänsä enempää pöyristyä.