Self-Sanctioning
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“It is a matter of life and death. So the EU will provide weapons for Ukraine’s armed forces. It is the moment to stand up and to speak out” - Josep Borrell, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs
Editor’s Notes:
We have friends w/ family in Kyiv & Lviv; there are a number of ways to support - an easy one is World Central Kitchen
This piece - like the last one - is a one-off
We may not be back for a while -
SELF-SANCTIONING.
Russian exposures aside (above), there are reports of “self-sanctioning” in the crude & products trade.
While energy exports were excluded from sanctions, some of these commodities are traditionally financed via European bank trade finance desks.
That appears to be disrupted; unsurprisingly, Brent Crude is up 5% tonight.
That trade may run for a while -
BANK RUNS.
The ECB Says Sberbank Europe Is Failing or Likely to Fail. The inverse of this situation - European banks with Russian subsidiaries - will likely play out en masse in the next few hours, when Russian markets open.
We will not be surprised by a complete collapse of the Russian banking system.
Three European banks (above) have significant exposures to that scenario -
RUSSIAN EXPOSURES.
France - Renault in particular - has disproportionately large Russian exposures.
Outside of France, Coca-Cola HBC (listed in London) - the Eastern European / Russia / CIS Coke bottler - faces material volatility going forward.
Non-traditional resources:
A Twitter account following Russian air-force radio communications
Flight tracking (unusual flight pattern changes have materialized ahead of official announcements)
If you have not read The Prize, *read it now*
That’s it for tonight - hoping for a swift end to this chaos -