Month: February 2022

Authored by Allen Zhong via The Epoch Times,

Russian military forces advancing on Kyiv and other major cities have been slowed by Ukrainian fighters, defense officials in the United States and the United Kingdom said on Feb. 26.

“Their momentum continues to be slowed predominately from a stiff Ukrainian resistance,” a senior U.S. defense official told reporters on a call.

“What they have seen is a very determined resistance, and it has slowed them down,” the official said.

According to the UK’s Ministry of Defense, the speed of the advance has been slowed, “likely as a result of acute logistical difficulties and strong Ukrainian resistance.”

The Russian forces are bypassing major Ukrainian population centers while leaving soldiers to encircle and isolate them, according to British officials, who added that the capture of Kyiv is still the primary goal of the Russian invasion.

Fighting broke out in Ukraine’s capital overnight but Ukraine still held the city on Saturday. Kyiv is about 240 miles from the Ukraine–Russia border; the Russian forces were about 18 miles, or 30 kilometers, from the city center, the UK Ministry of Defense said.

The situation is prone to rapid change, according to the U.S. official. “It’s a battlefield and events on the battlefield are dynamic and they can change very, very quickly,” the official added.

Smoke rises from a Russian tank destroyed by the Ukrainian forces on the side of a road in the Lugansk region on Feb. 26, 2022. (Anatolii Stepanov/AFP via Getty Images)

More than 100,000 Russian troops have entered Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a Twitter post.

Zelensky has refused to leave Kyiv, rebuffing a U.S. offer of evacuation and urging Ukrainians to fight.

“We will not lay down our weapons. We will defend our country. Our weapons are our strength. This is our land. Our country. Our children. We will protect all of them,” Zelensky said in a video posted to social media.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense urged the citizens to do whatever they can to slow down the Russians, including removing signs with numbers and names of the streets, cities, and villages in their regions.

“Let’s do everything possible to get rid of Russian occupiers from Ukraine as soon as possible,” the ministry wrote in a Twitter post.

Citizens were also encouraged to erase any marks the Russian military left on the road as they moved through the country.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks to the nation via his smartphone in the center of Kyiv, Ukraine on Feb. 26, 2022. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)

Meanwhile, Ukrainian allies are offering more assistance to Ukraine.

President Joe Biden authorized an additional $350 million in military assistance from Pentagon inventories, including anti-armor, small arms, various munitions, body armor, and related equipment.

The White House also reportedly asked Congress to provide $6.4 billion in extra funds to assist Ukraine.

The UK is sending defensive military aid to Ukraine and said it trained 22,000 Ukrainian troops.

North Korea resumed missile testing on Sunday following a pause during the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games. The latest is a suspected mid-range ballistic rocket, according to Bloomberg. 

Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi told reporters in Tokyo the suspected ballistic missile reached a maximum altitude of around 385 miles and flew 186 miles before splashing down in the waters outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone. 

South Korea’s military said the ballistic missile launch occurred at 0752 local time near Pyongyang’s main airport on the waters off its east coast. 

Weapon experts told Bloomberg the missile’s flight path was unusual and indicated the likely test of a medium-to-intermediate range ballistic missile. 

The launch comes two weeks before South Korea holds a presidential election. It also comes days after Russia invaded Ukraine, and Washington is preoccupied with bolstering NATO.  

“A confluence of these events — the Ukrainian situation, South Korea’s leadership transition period between now and the new president’s inauguration in May, and the shifting global dynamics involving the U.S., Russia, and China — make it extremely difficult to come up with and impose a coordinated response to North Korea, even if it were to resume intercontinental ballistic missile test-launches or nuclear tests,” Rachel Minyoung Lee, a non-resident fellow with the 38 North Program at the Stimson Center. 

“This lays the perfect ground for Pyongyang to test its new weapons and continue to make advancements in its nuclear and missile technology,” said Lee. 

North Korea’s last test was on Jan. 30, firing a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile, capped a record month of missile firings. 

The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command was aware of Sunday’s missile test. 

“The United States condemns this launch and calls on the DPRK to refrain from further destabilizing acts,” it said in a statement.

Pyongyang appears to have an ambitious schedule of missile launches this year and has chosen not to stay quiet. 

Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

The EU has unveiled its first tranche of economic sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. EU leadership looks even more angry about this outcome than US leadership does. Here’s the article covering this tangled mess by Sputnik News.

We know that the EU is very dependent on Russian energy and the existing sanctions have hampered EU-Russian trade for years now. Europe is incredibly vulnerable here to any form of supply/demand shocks as their financial system teeters on the edge of the abyss.

There is no solidarity between the US and the EU on these matters, as I’ve pointed out in post after post here. So, the question now is, if Europe is targeting Russian energy exports and the ability of EU banks to do business to buy Russian gas and other export commodities why would they pick this fight?

The answer must be that this is exactly what they wanted in the first place.

In the US we call this ‘suicide by cop,’ which is exactly how I framed it when asked by Sputnik for my thoughts on the subject this morning. I was asked on Monday before Putin’s intervention in Ukraine, to answer the following questions. Events moved beyond them, obviously, but I publish them here anyway because they are still of some value. {current editorial comments in brackets}

According to recent research, US liquefied natural gas export capacity will be the world’s largest by the end of 2022. Could it be that part of the whole game around Ukraine was about the US petroleum sector benefitting from the current standoff in Ukraine?

Of course. That is a sub-plot in this very complicated story.  There are many factors that went into this standoff over Ukraine, which Russia is now accelerating towards an end-game state {boy howdy was that an understatement 12 hours later}.  LNG exports from the US is certainly one of them, but I think the bigger issues concern the future of NATO, the security architecture of Europe and who controls it.

I see this as much as a fight between the US/UK and the EU over security as much as it is about the US’s long-standing antipathy to Russian energy exports.  These issues are, of course, all intertwined.

Is the current political battle over Ukraine just a pretext for the US to earn money via the energy sector, increasing supplies?

No, it isn’t.  It’s much deeper and nuanced than that.  There are future weapons contracts for US and UK military contractors at stake here, as well as France’s desires to become a major player in European arms sales. 

Russia, I believe, is being used as a bogeyman to advance internal European and ‘Anglo’ political agendas having more to do with shifts in foreign policy focus than just the ‘follow the money’ angle here.  ‘Following the energy and arms money’ is an important consideration but I think they are now downstream of a much different security landscape in Europe by 2030.

The European Union is looking for ways to assert its independence from Washington D.C.  Downing St. is pushing everyone into conflict for its own selfish and historical reasons, clinging to outdated political theories about controlling the ‘World Island’ and driving a wedge between Russia and China, which is achieving the exact opposite result.

How likely is it that the US might now try to establish control over transit routes going through Ukraine? Will the “Russian invasion” narrative be used as a pretext for doing so?

The transit routes through Ukraine in the minds of the Russian leadership fully depreciated assets that they unfortunately still continue to subsidize.  Putin mentioned the cost to subsidizing a hostile regime in Kiev during his speech announcing the recognition of the Donbass, $250 billion over 30 years. 

If the US wants control over those transit routes, that’s fine.  Russia will happily shut off the gas through them, since it costs Gazprom money to ship gas through them at this point.  Putin has ordered Gazprom to keep those pipelines filled as a fig leaf to Europe who has continually bitten his hand. 

I expect he won’t care to re-up the transit contract with Ukraine when it expires in December 2024.

So, if DC wants this, Putin will oblige and then stop transit all together, citing conflicts with Ukraine.

To what extent can the US indeed provide energy security for Europe by supplying resources?

The total US LNG output according to the EIA for 2022 is 11.5 bcf per day, which is 115 bcm per year, or roughly the capacities of Nordstream 1 and 2 combined. 

Is there 55 bcm of spare capacity (the size of NS2) in the US system to feed a new market in Europe?  No, not with demand rising at more than 6% annually and accelerating as the world comes out of COVID-19 lockdowns.

The demand for European LNG is so high that US and Russian suppliers both have massive market opportunities there.  So, this isn’t about the money, in the end.  With most of Europe ending its COVID-19 restrictions in a desperate attempt to stave off political unrest, demand is only going to rise further.

Moreover, US LNG is far more expensive than Russian piped gas.  This is simply a fact.  And with the Biden administration working with Davos to lean on banks to retard investment into new oil and gas projects, long-term supply of energy to Europe from the US is limited anyway.

US exports will go to where the bid is the highest and with Europe’s terrible future prospects, massive debt overhang and lack of economic dynamism they will not be capable of outbidding other global customers for gas.  That’s been the reason for the insane prices in Europe this winter, competition for limited gas supplies driving prices up, despite rising global capacity.

Can Europe survive without Russian energy supplies, if they were to be disrupted now due to the standoff and sanctions?

No.  It simply is not possible especially with Germany shutting down perfectly good nuclear reactors this year.  The big winner will actually be France in the short term who can sell excess electricity capacity to Germany for outrageous prices thanks to its massive nuclear footprint.

What’s happening now is Germany going along with the political flow, slowing the certification of Nordstream2 in the hope that something can be done to keep the worst-case situation unfolding in Ukraine. 

It’s too early to tell how violent things will get in the Donbass {very, apparently}, but it’s possible Russia’s recognition of the Donbass inspires other regions to declare their independence, pushing the UAF back towards Kiev. {all it will take is Russia’s full blow invasion of the country}  Politically, the Germans will eventually have to make a choice.  Russia and independence themselves or continued subordination to D.C.

{So far Germany has chosen poorly. This speaks to how surprised even Europe was by the size and scale of Putin’s move into Ukraine was. The reactions today by the EU and NATO scream that Putin promised them he wouldn’t do this and he did is anyway. Knowing Putin, the EU likely broke some other backroom deal.}

Is the fate of Nord Stream 2 at risk yet again amid recent developments?

Not likely. {this didn’t age well. It’s possible now that NS2 is abandoned by Russia in retaliation for NATO and EU stupidity.} The nomination of former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to the board of Gazprom tells me that this is his reward for shepherding the project to this point and its eventual completion.

That said, Russia’s trade surplus is so high that they hold the cards on trade.  No matter what sanctions packages are put in place, if the world wants what Russia sells, which goes far beyond oil and gas, they will eventually have to deal with Russia on her terms, not theirs. 

For example, the recent announcement by China and Russia to expand gas sales by another 10 bcm per year and settle the trade in euros can easily be amended if the EU oversteps here with sanctions over Ukraine. 

I’m sure if the EU tries to change the terms of the existing contracts currently settled in euros thanks to unilaterally imposed sanctions Russia will simply say, that’s fine, pay us in Rubles.  And then let’s watch to see what happens after that.

The lesson here is that balance sheets matter.  Russia’s is clean, with low debt, high reserves, a trade and current account surplus and plenty of policy room for its central bank to respond to sanctions.  Sanctions against her targeting the ruble under these conditions are toothless, in fact, more toothless now than in 2014.

Is LNG a viable alternative to less expensive Russian gas speeding over to European countries?

As a stop gap, anything is viable.  The LNG tanker market is a mess right now but that should revert back to normal soon.  When you see current conditions in a market like that of LNG carriers, negative charter day-rates, it isn’t sustainable, any more than oil pricing in May 2020 going negative. 

So, it’s only a viable alternative for a certain amount of time.  In the long run, high energy prices for Europe are simply a drain on potential growth, or in Europe’s case, recovery. Absent a massive spending blitz by the EU, which it will never agree on in any reasonable time frame, Europe’s energy future without Nordstream 2 and the now canceled East Med pipeline from Israel, is bleak.

The setup now is for a complete collapse of European capital markets as the Fed moves to raise interest rates in March, further putting stress on the euro and Europe’s ability to pay for its import needs. 

What’s clear from my responses to Sputnik and even from their questions is that neither side of this exchange expected the type of military move by Putin when these questions were formulated and responded to.

But much of the framework of these questions is still in place. The EU is in serious trouble.

Now that things have progressed in Ukraine far beyond what everyone thought, including many members of the political brass in the EU, the question now is whether the sanctions war will escalate from here.

And that’s where my ‘suicide by cop’ analogy is relevant:

[Sputnik asks about Europe’s energy security]

It all comes down to whether the EU decides to destroy its economy by doing what we Americans call ‘suicide by cop.’ That’s where someone wants to die and picks a fight with a policeman in order to get the cop to shoot him.

Europe is staring at a complete collapse of its economy if they sanction Russia’s energy sector and shut down her ability to do business with their banks. The question no one is asking is, “Did they provoke this fight on purpose to do exactly this?” From where I’m sitting, it looks to me like their insistence on zero diplomatic concessions to Russia led directly to this outcome. So, the answer to my question is ‘Yes, it was deliberate.’

But, even if I’m wrong and there are other unstated reasons why Russia blitzed Ukraine’s military installations off the map last night, the fallout from this will be far higher energy prices than the weak coalition governments will be able to sustain. I expect the map of Europe will look very different by the end of 2024 than it does today, reaching far beyond Ukraine.

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In a hopeful sign of de-escalation, Ukrainian officials said they will meet Russian counterparts at the Belarus border, shortly after Vladimir Putin said he is putting Russia’s nuclear forces on higher alert.

In a Facebook post, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that Ukraine has agreed to talks with Russia on the Belarusian-Ukrainian border.

“We have agreed that the Ukrainian delegation will meet with Russian without prior conditions on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, in the area of the Pripyat River,” Zelenskiy said. A delegation has already left Kyiv, Fedir Venislavskyi, a member of Zelenskiy’s party, said in televised comments.

The Ukraine foreign minister said that he will go to listen to what Russia has to say and that he will not surrender territory.

The confirmation came after Russia earlier sent a negotiation team to the southeastern Belarusian city of Gomel. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the “Russian delegation is ready for talks, and we are now waiting for the Ukrainians” in the Belarusian city of Homel, per AP.

In response, Zelensky said in a video address that he’s open to talks, but not in Belarus which he said was not neutral territory.

“If there had been no aggressive action from your territory, we could talk in Minsk … other cities can be used as the venue for talks,” Zelensky said. “We want peace, we want to meet, we want an end to the war,” he added.

“Warsaw, Bratislava, Budapest, Istanbul, Baku — we proposed all that to the Russian side. Any other city would work for us, too, in a country from whose territory rockets are not being fired.”

While an encouraging development, this won’t be the first time that the two nations have exchanged proposals for a potential ceasefire, only to see the plans collapse.

Meanwhile, in the latest battlefield developments, overnight Russian forces on Sunday attacked Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city. Much of Europe has closed its airspace to Russia, and offers of military assistance continue to flow in.

Also overnight, Western nations agreed to exclude some Russian banks from the SWIFT messaging system, used for trillions of dollars worth of transactions between banks around the world, further isolating Russia’s economy and financial system.

President Vladimir Putin has ordered his army to put Russia’s nuclear deterrence on “special” alert on Sunday following “aggressive statements” by NATO leaders.

“Western countries are not only taking unfriendly actions against our country in the economic area. I’m speaking about the illegitimate sanctions that everyone is well aware of. However, the top officials of the leading NATO countries also make aggressive statements against our country as well,” Putin stated on Russian media. 

Putin: “Western countries aren’t only taking unfriendly economic actions against our country, but leaders of major Nato countries are making aggressive statements about our country. So I order to move Russia’s deterrence forces to a special regime of duty.” pic.twitter.com/AC1yHncqZc

— max seddon (@maxseddon) February 27, 2022

“For this reason, I order the minister of defense and the chief of general staff to put deterrent forces on special combat duty,” Putin continued.

Earlier this month, Russia conducted exercises involving its nuclear forces including test launches of missiles.

Placing Russia’s nuclear deterrence on high alert may include the use of nuclear and conventional weapons. Russia’s military definition said the deterrence is designed “to deter aggression against Russia and its allies, as well as to defeat the aggressor, including in a war with the use of nuclear weapons.”

Commenting on the latest development, natsec reported Paul Sonne writes that “Putin is now essentially threatening the use of nuclear weapons in response to the announcement that the Russian central bank will be targeted with economic restrictions.”

Putin is now essentially threatening the use of nuclear weapons in response to the announcement that the Russian central bank will be targeted with economic restrictions.

— Paul Sonne (@PaulSonne) February 27, 2022

In response to Putin’s order, the US ambassador to the United Nations said that Putin’s decision escalates the conflict unacceptably.

Roughly 27 percent of people aged 15 to 24 are unemployed in the MENA region, the highest percentage share of all world regions.

But, as Statista’s Florian Zandt details below, based on data by the World Bank shows, even richer regions like North America are not exempt from the issue of young people not being able to find jobs.

You will find more infographics at Statista

On the contrary, the region comprised of the U.S. and Canada ranks fifth out of seven when it comes to youth unemployment and third when it comes to total unemployment according to World Bank data based on an International Labor Organization model for 2020. This issue is especially prevalent in Canada, where an estimated 20 percent of young job seekers can’t find work, a number similar to countries like Puerto Rico, Lithuania, France and Nigeria. Overall, the lowest percentage of unemployed people, whether bracketed in the group aged 15 to 24 or total, can be seen in the East Asia & Pacific region. There, only four percent of people willing to work can’t find jobs, while approximately eleven percent of young people were unemployed in 2020.

While the reasons for youth unemployment are manifold and complex, some of the more important indicators include levels of education and the degree of regulation of the corresponding labor markets. In OECD countries alone, roughly 178 million young people were unemployed in 2020.

Roughly 27 percent of people aged 15 to 24 are unemployed in the MENA region, the highest percentage share of all world regions.

But, as Statista’s Florian Zandt details below, based on data by the World Bank shows, even richer regions like North America are not exempt from the issue of young people not being able to find jobs.

You will find more infographics at Statista

On the contrary, the region comprised of the U.S. and Canada ranks fifth out of seven when it comes to youth unemployment and third when it comes to total unemployment according to World Bank data based on an International Labor Organization model for 2020. This issue is especially prevalent in Canada, where an estimated 20 percent of young job seekers can’t find work, a number similar to countries like Puerto Rico, Lithuania, France and Nigeria. Overall, the lowest percentage of unemployed people, whether bracketed in the group aged 15 to 24 or total, can be seen in the East Asia & Pacific region. There, only four percent of people willing to work can’t find jobs, while approximately eleven percent of young people were unemployed in 2020.

While the reasons for youth unemployment are manifold and complex, some of the more important indicators include levels of education and the degree of regulation of the corresponding labor markets. In OECD countries alone, roughly 178 million young people were unemployed in 2020.

Authored by Rupert Darwall via RealClearEnergy.org,

Vladimir Putin’s inflammatory speech, in which he set out his aim to reconstitute the Russian empire and blamed Lenin for its demise, and his decision to back this up with a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, signals the return of geopolitics. Until now, Western leaders have been saying that the biggest threat to the world is climate change. Now comes Putin armed with nuclear weapons, tanks, and thousands of troops declaring his intent to overthrow Europe’s post-Cold War order. The dilemma for the West: you can’t win a geopolitical conflict lasting years or decades with an economy powered intermittently by wind turbines and solar panels.

From the start of the Biden presidency, tensions existed within the administration between geopolitical realists, notably Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and climate hawks led by the president’s climate envoy John Kerry, who saw friendly relations with China as an essential ingredient for any global deal on the environment. Although Blinken’s position that Chinese expansionism is the biggest threat to the interests of the United States now has the upper hand, the administration’s anti-fossil-fuel policies will progressively degrade America’s capacity to prevail against its geopolitical adversaries.

Expanded pipeline infrastructure is critical to American energy security. One of the Biden administration’s first actions was cancelling the license for the Keystone XL pipeline. Thanks to inadequate infrastructure connecting New England to the rest of the country and the century-old Jones Act – requiring that all goods moving by water between American ports travel on ships built, owned, and manned by Americans – the winter of 2018 saw Russian liquefied natural gasbeing brought ashore in Boston Harbor. Currently, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is mulling a climate disclosure rule. The intent is to strengthen the hand of Wall Street and woke institutional investors to impose, in effect, an embargo on investment in domestic oil and gas production. The logic appears to be that domestically produced oil and gas incurs climate risk, whereas imported energy from beyond Wall Street’s writ does not. And just last month, the Pentagon released a net- zero plan for the army, which would see it relying on an all-electric, non-tactical vehicle fleet by 2035. 

It could be even worse. If John Kerry and the climate hawks had their way, the United States would be like Europe. The European Union is a paper empire. Its power is bureaucratic, deriving from rules and regulations. It is institutionally incapable of thinking and acting geopolitically because the EU is meant to be the exemplar of a post-geopolitical world, in which national sovereignty is dissolved in a supra-national, rules-based order. Net-zero and the UN climate process represent EU-style supranationalism at a global level. “Climate neutrality is our European destiny,” European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said two years ago when she announced the European Climate Law setting a legally binding target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

The push for wind and solar power, which started in Germany with the Renewable Energy Act of 2000, means greater reliance on supplies of Russian natural gas to keep the lights on. Europe’s dependence on Russian gas is stark. At an EU meeting last week to discuss possible sanctions against Moscow, Italy’s prime minister, Mario Draghi, pleaded that any measures “should be concentrated on narrow sectors without including energy.” 

This applies to Britain, too. When it comes to climate and energy, Britain (despite Brexit) remains functionally part of the EU, regardless of cost and the geostrategic consequences. In late 2019, Boris Johnson banned commercial fracking. Earlier this month, the British government ordered that concrete be poured into the country’s two exploratory shale wells and for them to be abandoned. The move was blasted by Cuadrilla Resources CEO Francis Egan, who pointed out that the Bowland shale formation could supply 50 years of current U.K. gas demand. “The value of just 10% of the in-place British resource would be approximately £3.3 trillion ($4.5 tn),” Egan wrote.  

The Soviet Union began supplying gas to western Europe in the 1960s. West German chancellor Willy Brandt quickly saw a political opportunity to do business with Moscow based on his belief that Moscow held the key to German reunification. (For the same reason, the East German communist regime strongly opposed the burgeoning Soviet-West German gas trade.) Not once during the Cold War did Moscow renege on a gas contract. In this respect, Putin, who has a deep understanding of the gas industry, is different from his Soviet predecessors. As a result of the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia ended up with the gas and Ukraine the pipeline and transit fees – a source of intense frustration to Putin.

In 2009, the Russian gas company Gazprom temporarily cut off exports to Europe. The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, like Nord Stream 1, takes the most direct route from Siberia to Europe, bypassing Ukraine. Credit the Biden administration for helping German chancellor Olaf Scholz over the line in suspending Nord Stream 2 – but if Moscow controls Ukraine, Putin will have solved his Ukrainian transit problem by extinguishing Ukrainian independence. On the other hand, Germany’s and the EU’s net-zero policies will deepen their dependence on Putin’s goodwill as they increase their exposure to unreliable wind and solar, phase out coal, and – in the case of Germany and Belgium – prematurely close their nuclear power stations.

Strategically, that’s a win for Putin.

Geopolitical realism requires energy realism. It also demands realism about the prospects for net-zero. Last week, Alok Sharma, the British president of the UN COP 26 climate conference, maintained that net-zero “remains alive,” but admitted, “the pulse is weak.” Achieving this barely-alive objective requires global emissions to be cut in half by the end of this decade. That’s not going to happen. The basic math of the West vs. the Rest’s greenhouse gas emissions means that what the West does has a diminishing effect on the trajectory of global emissions.

In an age when Russia invades a sovereign state on a baseless pretext and denies its right to exist, it’s high time Western leaders got real. The West either understands what is at stake and plays by the rules of geopolitics or the West loses. The speed with which the West adjusts to this new reality will determine how much ground Russia and China can take.

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Rupert Darwall is author of  Green Tyranny.