Russia

In Europe 19th February 2025

EU keeps up pressure on Russia: still on “blacklist” of tax havens, France announces new sanctions against Russian oil

Banca March | The European Union is keeping up the pressure on Russia. On the one hand, France yesterday announced new sanctions against Russian oil for the invasion of Ukraine, without Washington’s backing and despite the apparently limited effect of similar measures introduced by Western countries. The French Foreign Minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, pointed out that Russia earns €100 billion a year from oil sales, while the total cost of the…

Russian invasion of Ukraine has begun as Putin039s tanks roll

In Europe 15th June 2023

Russia announces windfall tax on big business to finance the war

Banca March| Russia has announced a windfall tax on its large companies as a method of financing the war. Putin’s government announced a bill to levy a one-off 10% windfall profits tax on large Russian companies, the country’s Finance Ministry said on Tuesday. It targets companies that annually generated more than 1 billion roubles, or $11.9 million, in profits from 2021, according to the announcement. The new levy could raise…

World economy, World politics 24th May 2023

China-Russia trade ties enhanced in response to Western sanctions

Alicia García herrero (Natixis) | During the past fifteen months after the outbreak of the Ukraine war, China and Russia’s trade value increased by 36.5% compared to pre-war levels, showing their much-enhanced ties in merchandise trade. Meanwhile, in addition to the upswing of the headline amount, some new patterns in their trade structure are also worth watching. For example, Russia has moved up rapidly in the rank of China’s external…

World economy 17th April 2022

Can Iran Replace Russian Gas Export to Europe?

European Views | The conflict between Russia and Ukraine continues and so do the global gas supply issues. Iran hopes to step in and become Europe’s main gas provider replacing Russian gas export. Iran to Offer Alternative to Russian Gas Export in Europe Being the second-largest gas reserves globally, Iran has 34 trillion cubic metres of natural gas. It’s nearly 17% of the world’s total reserves. Some believe that Iran…

European economy 18th March 2022

Good News? Russia Has Paid

Good news? In Russia, JP Morgan claims to have processed interest payments on two of the country’s sovereign issues, raising expectations of default on its debt for the first time since 1998. This has not prevented Standard & Poor’s from downgrading the country’s credit rating by one notch to CC, just two notches above default, in its belief that the country’s debt is “highly vulnerable to default”. In China, according…

World economy 14th March 2022

Can China Bail Out Putin?

Alicia García Herrero (Natixis) | The unprecedented sanctions imposed on Russia in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine are likely to have devastating consequences. But this will depend on whether Russia manages to bypass the sanctions or, at the very least, mitigate them. One important consideration to answer this question is China’s potential role in offering a helping hand to the Russian economy. China’s economic size and financial clout,…

Spanish economy 2nd March 2022

Spain, with a deficit in cereals, imports annually almost 30% of the corn it needs from Ukraine

According to data from the agricultural organization Asaja, Spain annually imports almost 30% of the corn it needs from Ukraine. “The Spanish agricultural sector will undoubtedly be one of the victims. Our imports of cereals and sunflower, as well as basic means of production such as manure and fertilizers, will be seriously affected, which will imply a new increase in production costs for the sector”, the association pointed out. In…

Relevant News Item 28th February 2022

Putin Returns To Brezhnev’s Interventionist Doctrine

Luis Alcaide | Early morning of 26 February 2022. Invasion of Russian troops. I don’t know whether I’m in Madrid or in the Bucharest of that morning on 21 August 1968. At that time, 170,000 Warsaw Pact soldiers were invading Czechoslovakia, and the Prague Spring was a political and economic threat to the communist bloc. Czechoslovakia, which was a developed pre-World War II society and economy, offered in 1968 economic…

European economy 26th February 2022

Underestimating Putin’s Resolve Leads To Tragedy

J.P. Marín-Arrese | Ever since the Soviet Union collapsed, the US has shown utter disdain for Russia. It flouted the pledge made to Gorbatchev to keep former Warsaw Pact countries out of NATO so that Russia could have a security buffer zone along its frontiers. It openly invited the Ukrainian government to disregard the Minsk agreement, which was brokered to ensure that Ukraine would remain neutral. John Kerry, the former…

World economy 23rd February 2022

How Much Trade Support Can Russia Find In China?

Alicia García Herrero (Natixis) | Given the delicate situation in Ukraine and the US imposition of sanctions on Russia, followed by the European Union (EU), it seems important to assess how much Russia can rely on China as a trading partner. Although trade between the EU and Russia has lost some steam since Putin’s “Pivoting to the East” announced during his 2021 campaign and the sanctions imposed in 2014 due…

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