The degree of panic in the Kremlin about the state of the Russian economy has been exposed by the conditions he has laid down at the UN for resuming the grain deal.
DMITRY A. POLYANSKIY (Russian Federation) said that, out of 32 million tons of exports, 70 per cent entered high- and upper-middle-income countries, whereas the poorest — Ethiopia, Yemen, Sudan and Somalia — received less than 3 per cent. This geography demonstrates that this humanitarian initiative was commercial. Further, he stressed that not one of those claiming that Moscow is starving the world moved a finger to ensure free deliveries of Russian Federation fertilizers. Contrary to the agreements, Ukraine and its Western patrons capitalized on the humanitarian corridors to attack Russian Federation military and civilian facilities, he said, underscoring that the United Nations has not assessed these actions. “You want us to tolerate this?”, he asked, stating that Moscow now views all ships proceeding to Black Sea waters and Ukrainian ports as carriers of military cargo. Noting the Secretary-General’s reaction to his country’s successful strikes in Odesa and Mykolaiv, he asked whether a similar response could be expected on “Kyiv’s sabotage of the Tolyatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline, whose potential to food security was already mentioned today”.
He went on to say that Moscow stands ready to re-join the initiative under one condition — the full implementation of all agreed-upon principles relating to the Russian Federation’s participation in that agreement. These include, inter alia, the lifting of sanctions on the provision of Russian Federation grain and fertilizers to global markets; the lifting of obstacles imposed on Russian Federation banks, including immediate connection to SWIFT; the resumption of deliveries to the Russian Federation of spare parts for agriculture and fertilizer production; and the return of the initial humanitarian nature of the Black Sea Grain Initiative — for the benefit of countries in need, instead of “making wealthy countries wealthier”. He said that, as soon as this condition is met, the Russian Federation “will immediately re-join the grain deal”.
SWIFT is the fast inter-bank fund transfer system that is a vital part of trading. Quite simply without it he cannot easily get the money for non-sanctioned exports not pay for imports.
This means even Putin realizes that the sanctions are working. We have known anecdotally that Russia is running out of the ability to maintain its infrastructure because Putin has no balls — ball bearing that is. The talking heads on Russian TV have complained their high speed train between Moscow and St Petersburg was imported and they cannot service them when they go wrong. That’s what the “spare parts” bit is about. Russia has no ball bearing production of its own and was dependent on imports mainly from EU countries. There have been reports of stocks being diverted into tank and armaments production and of railroad wagons being unable to be used. To paraphrase an old adage
For want of a bearing the wheel was lost.
For want of a wheel the train was lost.
For want of a train the supply line was lost.
For want of a supply line the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the war was lost.
And all for the want of a ball bearing
Although tempted, I will not update the very rude WWII British song referencing Herr Hitler’s monorchism,
Russia collapsing in three…. two ….