Time to start counting the ways Putin screwed his people over

[Benton D Struckcheon]

1. Capital flight has hit 220 billion dollars, according to the head of the ECB. You know, because of those ineffective sanctions.

2. In absolute desperation to get his comical Eurasian Economic Union off the ground Putin gave in and gave Belarus what it wanted in terms of oil shipments and the amount they would have to pay in duties for that oil: zip.

Russia agreed to ship, duty-free, 23 million tonnes (169 million barrels) of oil this year to Belarus as a part of a customs union agreement. In turn, Belarus exports oil products, the duty on which it pays to Russia. Annual revenue from the duty is around 100 billion roubles ($2.9 billion).
Moscow and Minsk were long at odds over duties and the amount of oil Russia provides to Belarus. Moscow last month agreed to raise volumes by 10 percent from a previous 21 million tonnes - exactly what Minsk was asking for.
"We resolved for 10 years the issue of oil and gas deliveries at volumes we would like - 23 million tonnes is enough for us to load our refineries," Lukashenko said.
He added that around $1.5 billion in oil product duties would stay in Belarus next year.

3. They may have to close that gas pipeline deal with China on not terribly favorable terms:

“This time, Russia really may close the China gas supply deal considering that it’ll be more flexible on the price,” Ildar Davletshin, an oil and gas analyst at Renaissance Capital, said by phone from Moscow.

4. Finland and Sweden are suddenly best buddies:

Finland and Sweden are looking into pooling their defense resources as the crisis in Ukraine shifts the Nordic states’ military-policy focus to protecting their home turf from participating in international peacekeeping.
“We have a neighbor who has demonstrated a couple of times in the past six years that military power and the threat of using it are simply instruments in the political toolbox,” Charly Salonius-Pasternak, security policy researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, said by phone yesterday. “For a small nation, this is a terrifying idea.”

Strategic Blow

Popular opposition to joining NATO has centered on the belief that Russia is becoming slowly more democratic and that economic ties will keep conflicts from escalating, Salonius-Pasternak said. That argument has now “received a strategic blow.”

5. Last and by far most dangerous to the Russian economy in the long run - although beneficial to the rest of us and the planet, G-7 Efforts Towards Renewables are About to Get Pushed Up on the Priority List.

Renewable energy will be central to enhancing energy security, said the G7 energy ministers in a meeting to discuss the implications of Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
Energy ministers from the world’s seven largest economies confirmed that strong climate change policies would support their energy security agendas during a two day meeting in Rome, as fears rise over the potential fallout from the territorial dispute in Ukraine.
...
“We recognise that our goals on energy security and climate security are strongly linked,” said Ed Davey, UK minister for energy and climate change, following the meeting.
“Investing in homegrown clean energy and energy efficiency across our economies is fundamental to greater energy security, just as it is to fighting climate change.”

So, to sum up, money is fleeing Russia, they had to pay up just to get Belarus to join their new economic union, the pipeline deal with China will probably go through with worse terms for Russia than it would have before Ukraine, their neighbors are allying with each other and, in the case of those who belong to NATO, strengthening their military ties, thereby surrounding Russia with nations that are now on the alert against it, and their long-term economic prospects, already bad, have gotten even worse.
This doesn't count all the various cooperation deals, military and civilian, with Russia that have been suspended or canceled because of what they did re Ukraine.
All that because he didn't like the new government in Ukraine. That's the price of going to war instead of going through diplomacy.

[okaawhatever]

1. Thanks for putting this together. It's important things like this that people ignore. Russian

citizens will definitely pay a high price for the Crimea.