foreign affairs
Bloomberg reported last year that one of these vessels, the 115m long Amur 2501 had taken on grain at Sevastopol in early July before heading to the Kerch Strait where it conducted what is known as a ship to ship transfer, effectively offloading the grain it was carrying on to another vessel while at sea. This other vessel then went on to deliver... See more
Bellingcat Investigation Team • Russia’s Ghost Ships and the Evolution of a Grain Smuggling Operation - bellingcat
Both ships have a carrying capacity of 28,000 deadweight tons (DWT) so if they were operating at full capacity, and if they offloaded their full cargo, then 56,000 tons of grain from occupied Ukraine has been transferred to Iran in the last eight weeks alone.
Bellingcat Investigation Team • Russia’s Ghost Ships and the Evolution of a Grain Smuggling Operation - bellingcat
In many of the most prominent cases of grain being exported from sanctioned Crimea, media reports detailed how a fleet of handymax ships such as the Mikhail Nenashev, Matros Shevchenko (IMO: 9574195), Matros Koshka (IMO: 9550137) and Matros Pozynich (IMO: 9573816) were pictured in Sevastopol with their AIS disabled.
They would then head out into the... See more
They would then head out into the... See more
Bellingcat Investigation Team • Russia’s Ghost Ships and the Evolution of a Grain Smuggling Operation - bellingcat
fascinating
wildly interesting boom economy in Russia right now despite all of the sanctions imposed by the west
“But as usual, in Moscow, things looked very different. ‘They are even richer,’ a friend in Moscow texted when I asked him how the residents of the chic Patriarch Ponds neighborhood are living through these uncertain times. ‘It is amazing. Never seen so many Lambos and Rolls as last year.’ What about the ruble crisis, I asked? “Don’t care,” he texted. ‘They live in Russia, taking salaries in rubles and spend their money in Russia.’
A friend of his is an interior designer who has been freed by the war of competition. Her problem, she now says, is being able to finish all the jobs that have fallen in her lap, not getting new customers. Another friend, who works for a Russian oligarch, told my friend, ‘You have no idea how much money there is in Russia right now.’ Said ‘Only a fool wouldn’t be able to earn money right now.’”
apparently if you're remotely good at making money, you're making a *fuck ton* of money in Russia right now, and so long as you're transacting solely in Rubles, it doesn't really matter that the currency is collapsing
long term, however, it's gotta mean terrible things for their economy and the Ruble being weak can't be good for long
apparently there is tons of money flowing to the poorest regions of Russia for signing bonuses for soldiers, and they're even helping soldiers out with their mortgages as a way to encourage them to join the fight
in essence, there's a massive wealth redistribution going on in Russia, and it's all just coming from the country's budget and (as would make Keynes proud), trickling down throughout the entire country
which, if you think about the goals of the sanctions, is not in the West's favor, at least in the short-term
the point of the sanctions ideally would have been to create a slowdown in Russia that caused the public to lose support for the war, but if the economy is booming.......don't count on it
this seems like it could be on the level of Caesar's Palace Coup, Unscripted, or Barbarians at the Gate as far as story goes, though i'll have to learn more about it
Russia’s Ghost Ships and the Evolution of a Grain Smuggling Operation - bellingcat
Bellingcat Investigation Teambellingcat.com
