You may be surprised, but in 2020, under pressure from US sanctions, Rosneft ceased operations in Venezuela and sold all its local assets to a company that is 100% owned by the Russian government. At that time, Russian companies controlled 70% of all oil produced in Venezuela.

For Russia, this does not look normal, like a land blockade of its exclave.

Exclaves are not a problem for Russia as long as good partnerships are maintained with neighboring states. Ukraine and the Baltic States are infected with Nazism and cultivate Russophobia - this exacerbates the issue of a land corridor to Kaliningrad and Crimea. I think this issue will be resolved.

There are historical reasons why the Kaliningrad region is part of Russia, and they are quite reasonable. This is not a matter of logic, but a fait accompli.

Secretary of the Russian Security Council Patrushev flew to Kaliningrad yesterday for a scheduled off-site meeting of the Security Council, but the issue of surrendering Koenigsberg to Germany is unlikely to be on the agenda. From Kaliningrad, the whole of Europe is very conveniently shot through by Iskanders. Although it is all shot through from the Caspian Sea with Calibers, but nonetheless.

But look how beautiful - we are now witnessing the energy suicide of Europe. In the Netherlands, three mothballed coal-fired thermal power plants have already been launched. In Germany, gas-intensive production is under threat of stopping and ceasing to exist. In the summer, there is no injection, but the consumption of gas from underground storage facilities. Russia will suffer some discomfort from Western sanctions, but what margin of safety does Europe have?

You better follow the Ukrainian hryvnia, the key rate there is now 25%.

Meanwhile, Europe is drawing up emergency plans to switch back to coal after Russia cuts natural-gas supplies.

Lithuania has created a casus belli by restricting the transit of cargo to the Kaliningrad region. Russia will have to give an adequate response to this demarche.

In general, Russia needs the Baltic states so that the Kaliningrad region ceases to be an exclave. As well as the southern regions of Ukraine, which create a land corridor to the Crimea (and, logically, should be extended to Transnistria through control over the Nikolaev and Odessa regions). This can be considered an operation to restore the territorial integrity of Russia within the boundaries of its self-identity, as a territory with a predominance of the Russian-speaking population.

It seems that the topic of Ukraine has already pretty tired everyone, and now all the attention of the politically active world community is riveted to the Suwalki Gap.

Meanwhile, the Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of Russia recently confirmed the abandonment of targeting the ruble exchange rate and the concentration on inflation targeting.
This confirms my assumption that Russia will try to take advantage of the window of opportunity that has opened for a systemic restructuring of its own economy, even if this promises to give up short-term profits due to current market conditions. Today, the ruble has strengthened to the level of 2015, less than 55 rubles per dollar.

Well, now you know. A gas pipeline passes through Ukraine and Russian Gazprom pays Ukrainian Naftogaz for the transit of Russian gas from Russia to Europe at a rate of 41.7 million cubic meters of natural gas per day through the Sudzha gas metering station.

You are right, it is risky. But right now, Russia has an amazing window of opportunity to realize this. And it did not open on its own, Putin opened it with his pre-emptive invasion of Ukraine, which triggered Western economic sanctions and a mass exodus of Western companies from Russia, which themselves voluntarily freed the huge Russian market from their presence, creating favorable conditions for a large-scale transformation of Russia. I am not a big fan of Putin, but I truly admire the beauty of his strategy and the scope of his ambitions. It would have been much easier and safer to wait for Ukraine's invasion of the Donbass - and Russia would still have won, albeit with much greater human losses, but there would not have been this condemning pressure from the West on Russia, thanks to which Russia had a real chance for a painful transformation from another one country of the third world into the unifying power of the locomotive of the largest continent (which, by right of its birth and geographical location, it is). Let's see, Putin's speech yesterday at the economic forum in St. Petersburg gives a chance to hope that Russia will choose not the easy path of its development, but the right one.

It's strange that this is surprising to you. Russia is a very strong player in the energy market, and in many aspects (including uranium enrichment). And of course, in the context of sanctions and the actual economic war between the West and Russia, Russia will use all its weighty arguments to secure victory or at least an advantage. The United States also cannot do without the supply of enriched uranium from Russia, it provides approximately 20% of all electricity generation at nuclear power plants in the United States.


Germany now does not have a combat-ready army capable of resisting Russia. No one in NATO, including the United States, has a combat-ready army capable of resisting Russia (which is why NATO is so diligently distancing itself from direct participation in the conflict in Ukraine). Don't be fooled, most European armies are decorative, like the Vatican Guards.

update:

Right now, Russia is at a very interesting historical crossroads. Figuratively speaking, she needs to make a very difficult choice between two different paths of development, one of which is "easy" and the other is "right". The "easy" way is to continue to be a raw materials appendage and a gas station country, reorienting logistics routes from West to East. The "right" way is to block all the ways of capital outflow from the country to focus on internal development. Of course, this division is figurative, these two paths are largely intertwined and one does not exclude the other, it is more a matter of prioritization. But in many ways, it is the internal policy of the regulator in relation to the ruble exchange rate that will be a reliable indicator of which path Russia has chosen as its main priority.

The logic is very simple - Ukraine now really needs some kind of significant military victory over Russia, so that the flow of military aid from the West will increase significantly and not dry up at all. And for this, to provoke Russia into a suicidal assault on the powerful fortified areas in Avdiivka is a good enough idea. Yesterday, at an economic forum in St. Petersburg, Putin said that a direct assault on Avdiivka is not expedient (in other words, Russia cannot afford it now).

Now, in response, explain what logic Russia has to shell the residential areas of Donetsk, when the DPR is an ally of Russia in this operation and the main goal of Russia is to protect the Donbass?

Crimea became part of Russia in 2014 and this is not a subject for negotiations with Ukraine. Kherson and Zaporozhye regions are no longer a subject for negotiations with Ukraine. Odessa and Nikolaev regions are not yet under the control of Russia, but definitely in the sphere of its interests. Ukraine's problem is that it will not be able to pay off only these areas so that Russia stops its military operation. Because the goals of the operation declared by Putin include the whole of Ukraine (and it’s good if they are limited only to it). And it is unlikely that Ukraine is ready to give up all of its territory in exchange for a cessation of hostilities with Russia, so I do not see any prospects for peace negotiations now, at least with Zelensky. And what is Biden ready to offer Putin in exchange for ending the military operation in Ukraine?.

A typical Ukrainian peremoga, is the Vasily Bekh rescue tugboat with a civilian crew.

Donetsk is randomly fired on residential areas from Avdiivka in order to provoke Russia to storm it, which will entail many human casualties, which Russian generals want to avoid in every possible way, because there are very powerful fortified areas of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. I think Avdeevka has a chance to repeat the fate of Azovstal and become the second object in Ukraine that will have to be bombed with heavy high-explosive bombs.

Let me remind you that Ukraine from the beginning of the operation and still carries out the transit of Russian gas through its territory to Europe and receives money from Gazprom for this. Don't you think it's too hypocritical to blame others for what you do yourself?

One of the problems with nuclear power is that everything is very slow there, it will take years, if not decades, to fully resume the European nuclear program. Another problem is with the source of enriched uranium supplies, which is approximately 40% controlled by Russia. There are also difficulties with unenriched uranium, it simply does not exist in Europe, and Africa does not seem to have the necessary enthusiasm to be a cash cow for its former colonialists. Another problem is the dramatic drop in the level of competence of European engineers in nuclear power. France's attempt to build a nuclear power plant in Finland in the early 2000s ended in complete failure, exceeding the original budget by three times. In general, there are a number of serious difficulties for Europe in this direction. And given that the most powerful Zaporozhye NPP in Europe actually left the European energy system and moved into the Russian energy system, there are already difficulties with load balancing in Europe, because windmills and solar panels are an unstable source of electricity, energy generation at night and in the absence of wind (or on the contrary, if the wind is too strong), it can drop to zero on them.

I don’t know what is in the head of European politicians who are overly enthusiastic about the green agenda, but there is a suspicion, turning into confidence, that there is burnt porridge.

The US dollar is experiencing problems with inflation, that is, it is getting cheaper. The world's leading currencies, such as the euro, pound and yen, are depreciating against the dollar, that is, they are depreciating even more. It seems that the world economy can now be characterized by the words recession and stagflation. Russia is watching the ongoing processes, but does not seek to fall into this abyss along with everyone else, so the Central Bank of Russia does not make efforts to devalue the ruble, even if it is unprofitable for exporters. It is more important to maintain the stability of the domestic market and prevent devaluation shocks for the population. Russia has a huge margin of safety due to the National Welfare Fund and many years of living with a budget surplus. Let the dollar fall - the ruble will not fall even faster, but rather will strengthen, I expect a return to the level before 2014, when the dollar was worth 30-35 rubles.

The Siemens turbine was taken to Canada for repairs and cannot be brought back due to sanctions. Gazprom stopped another turbine "due to the impossibility of safe operation." As a result, in two days, the volume of gas through Nord Stream fell from 170 to 67 million tons per day, and the price of gas in Europe increased by 40%.

ps Canada reports talks with Germany on Siemens-made Nord Stream 1 equipment

Well, walk around the market, look for other options. It looks like Nord Stream will close completely soon and gas in Europe will rise in price even more, if +40% to the price in a couple of days seems not enough for you. Surely, for such a good price, there are other gas suppliers to Europe, except for Russia.

I do not trust the banking system, not because it is Russian, but because it is a banking system. That's why I'm here.

The sanctions of 2014 immediately halved the exchange rate of the ruble against the dollar and, accordingly, many goods also doubled in price, and the ruble exchange rate never returned back then, unlike the events of this spring. Therefore, every Russian painfully felt the sanctions of 2014 on his pocket. Now the ruble exchange rate has again fallen by half at first, but then quickly recovered to its original level and even better, so the impact of sanctions is much less noticeable.

Maybe in response you will share your impressions of how to live in a bankrupt country with an economy paralyzed by military operations, with a halved GDP, devaluation of the hryvnia and a key rate of 25%, which makes any commercial activity impossible except for short-term speculation? What is it like to be completely dependent on subsidies and handouts from the West?

I seriously think that everything is fine in Russia even now. You can always do something better, but this is not a reason to indiscriminately deny existing achievements. Thanks for the kind words.

The world has been inspired by the ideas of globalization for quite a long time, and as a result, the world economy turned out to be saturated with interdependencies, many of which are hidden and not obvious, and their influence is fully manifested only at the moment of rupture of ties. In general, Russia is doing well, with little debt, a chronic budget surplus, food security, an abundance of energy resources and a colossal surplus of raw materials - all this allows us to look to the future with confidence. The West underestimated the influence of Russia on the world economy, if you look at the extractive industries and subtract all sorts of inedible futures and services, you will get Russia's share in the world economy not 1.5%, but at least 6.5% (or even all 10%). And if Western sanctions threaten Russia with the speed of sustainable development, they put the West itself on the brink of existence. I will illustrate the idea with a fresh example. The other day, Canada refused to return a Siemens turbine to Gazprom from repair due to sanctions, and Gazprom had to reduce gas transmission through Nord Stream by two thirds, which caused the price of gas to rise by 25%. It turns out that the sanctions were imposed against Russia, and it is Europe that suffers from them first of all. Moreover, the United States introduces sanctions against Russia very selectively and often cancels it if it becomes unprofitable for it. I think that Biden and Putin agreed during the meeting last year how to divide Europe. Europe in this story is definitely a trophy and a victim, it pays for everything.

Difficult to answer, I don't know what kind of law you mean, please clarify. I don't keep large savings in a bank deposit.

My financial situation has known better times than today. But I take this calmly, during the sanctions in 2014 after the annexation of Crimea, it was much worse, during the crypto winter in 2018-19, perhaps, too. I do not make of consumption a religion or a cult.