According to new data, Russia has surpassed Saudi Arabia as the chief supplier of crude oil, in what was considered an unlikely outcome for the battle over market share since oil prices took a tumble last year. The Chinese data, released by the General Administration of Customs, said that some 927,000 barrels per day were…
As EU Leaders mull the passage or extension of its sanctions against Russian leaders and upper class, an economic aide in the Kremlin said that the Russian government is considering additional measures that can be taken in response, in addition to the already-in-place ban on Western food imports and travel bans on European officials. Either…
After the reported death of an additional two servicemen yesterday in Ukraine as reported by Kiev’s military spokesman Andrei Lysenko and increased heavy weaponry presence on both sides in the contested region of Luhansk has prompted calls by both separatists and Kiev to meet again on June 23 in Minsk. The last meeting in the…
As the June 30 deadline looms for a final nuclear deal framework that will allow Iranian sanctions to be lifted, President Hassan Rouhani expressed his optimism in the current situation, saying a deal was “within reach.” However, two issues remain thorny for nuclear deal pessimists, in particular the wording of Rouhani’s tentative endorsement of inspections…
The IMF’s Deputy Managing Director David Lipton gave a statement on default risks and creditor relationships that suggests the organization will continue to support Ukraine even if it decides to follow through on the threat of last month’s legislation allowing it to ignore payments to creditors like the consortium of institutional investors like Franklin Templeton…
The G7 Summit ended today in the Bavarian Alps, and the heads of state of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the US issued a proclamation of solidarity on sanctions again the Russian Federation and committed to keep them in place and have their duration be “clearly linked to Russia’s complete implementation of the…
The Russian Presidency is allocating an enormous amount of “secret” funds for a military buildup, the largest since the end of the Cold War. The federal budget that is black, or authorized but not itemized, has doubled since 2010 to 3.2 trillion rubles (or $60 billion) according to estimates by a Bloomberg affiliate. Putin may…
The ruble has slid to its lowest point in five weeks after the CBR suspended its foreign exchange auctions in order to keep the value from going too high. Specifically, the CR suspended the sale of its one-year foreign currency repurchase agreements, purposefully focusing any remaining investor attention on high-yield ruble-denominated assets. The CBR is…
In a move that adds further murkiness to an already confused situation, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have agreed to a demarcation of their maritime border in the Caspian Sea, despite the fact that previous conferences of the five Caspian littoral states (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, and Russia) established that borders had to be delineated and agreed…
Deputy Foreign Minister of Iran in charge of its nuclear negotiations Abbas Araqchi said that it has agreed to the major concession of allowing UN inspectors to have managed access to military facilities as part of its nuclear deal with the P5+1 Powers. The UN team would apparently be allowed to take environmental samples from…
STEPPE DISPATCHES 