I have it a bit easier in my line of work. I deal with physical commodities which have historically been directly linked to geopolitics. Majority of people I meet speak Russian/English/French/Chinese/Dutch/Spanish/Arabic (often a combination of 3-4 of those). Some have spent years in Russia in local trading offices etc and are acutely aware how the pie is made.

Overall I see a tectonic split in my line of work between reality (within allowed sanctions regime) and public messages in the media which seem to be bordering on religion and fanatism. As a bank you are the most exposed so usually you can’t take any chances even if allowed by the regulations. Clients are actually complaining they are pushed by the OFAC to continue buying Russian commodities to ensure security of supply. I see European banks losing out the most as Americans are reassured by OFAC, Asians/ME banks not giving too much of a shit, but EU ones are under constant pressure by the ESG brigade.

https://www.ctrmcenter.com/news/trafigura-vitol-might-step-up-trade-in-russian-oil-ceos/

As a result I see that crude trading offices have largely moved to Dubai and stuff is sold to India/Africa/China settled in gold/dirham/rupee. Oil products are still allowed to be lifted and encouraged to keep flowing by the Americans. EU have allowed blending explicitly so russian origin is still flowing, albeit for “statistics” it doesn’t show up as “Russian”. There is an industry wide joke about Latvian and Malaysian blends.

Metals are too important for energy transition efforts to be sanctioned (Russian origin copper/nickel/alu represent 25%+ of LME onwarrant material. We see stuff coming offwarrant which has been produced after feb 2022 which always causes a long discussion with banks). Sanctioning metals will probably collapse hedging/trade in metals and will cause another inflation spiral.

Agri has not been sanctioned by the west and Russians are actually regaining control by kicking ABCDs out (except COFCO lol cuz they are bros).

I see that environmental concerns have been thrown under the bus as shipping routes have on average doubled or tripled in time which burns more fuel oil and many of those ships are old which will mean an increase in incidents. Every rusty bucket that is able to float is being chartered to carry stuff to those desperate enough to buy.

This post was edited by Malopox on Apr 7 2023 12:16am

You a forex trader?

And all liberal countries just surrender to Putin/Russia or any other villain that shows up?
UN is basically useless, it does very, very little to prevent war or defend victims.

No idea about forex.

It's exactly what you've been waiting for 75 years. A villain to save the alliance. To justify it's very existence. From the Holocaust to the status of a liberal country. You gonna go far, kid.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/06/us/politics/ukraine-war-plan-russia.html
https://twitter.com/paul49802991/status/1644214244785762304

A set of US military documents showing the arm buildups for Ukraine and the US war assessments have leaked on Twitter/Telegram and are widespread enough the Pentagon's attempts to have them censored are pointless now
Appears to be briefing documents, probably for lawmakers or the white house or whatever, or maybe just for military brass
The quality of the papers and the reaction it provoked makes it appear to be genuine top secret documents, but that still doesn't mean the intelligence is remotely accurate, and there's clearly multiple sets photoshopped out of the same documents with the numbers of estimated KIA/equipment losses on either side manipulated, as if both sides weren't already manipulating their statistics for both public media consumption and domestic political viewing anyway ('member aluminum tubing intel?)

Either way, they clearly show the US deeply involved in Ukrainian military operations and micromanaging force deployments (duh), and notably it appears to document 97 total US/NATO special forces and 100 total US personnel (71 department of state 29 department of defense) present in Ukraine, which doesn't appear to be part of the contested and probably photoshopped sections.

This post was edited by Goomshill on Apr 7 2023 04:08am

what then?

USSR was evil, Russia was evil since Putin took power.
There were only about 8 truly peaceful years: 1991-1999.
If Ukraine were part of NATO, Russia would not invade them.

Physical commodities.



Chechen wars were halal?

This post was edited by Malopox on Apr 7 2023 05:20am