THE THREE Ds & THE STATE OF THE 'EMPIRE'
Looking back on Putin's big speech today, it could be summed up with three Ds: Defiance, Denial, and Delusion.
Defiance because there was no signs of backing down on Ukraine in the face of Western sanctions and Russia's increasing isolation;
Denial, because there was no mention whatsoever of the falling oil prices that threaten to cripple the Russian economy. Nor was there any plan to avert what the Russian government this week acknowledged was a looming recession.
And delusion? Well, where does one start? The fanciful claim that sanctions will actually help Russia's economy perhaps. Or the bizarre warning to speculators who were causing the ruble's fall. (Those speculators must have been quite busy as Putin spoke. Over that 75 minutes, the Russian currency lost about 1.2 percent of its value.) Or the claim that the West was planning to sanction Russia anyway, and the Crimean annexation was just a pretext. The list goes on and on.
Leonid Bershidsky wrote up a devastating wrap of the speech for Bloomberg that basically nails it.
"'Luck,' wrote the U.S. gonzo-journalist Hunter S. Thompson, 'is a very thin wire between survival and disaster, and not many people can keep their balance on it.' Russian President Vladimir Putin, who today gave the most pitiful state-of-the-nation speech of his extraordinarily lucky career, is falling off the wire."
That sums it up nicely.
Be sure to tune in to the Power Vertical Podcast on December 5, when I will discuss the speech -- and what it portends -- in greater depth with guests Kirill Kobrin and Nina Khrushcheva.
RUBLE RATE AND OIL PRICE
Good morning. It's 8:30 a.m. here in Prague.
The Ruble is trading at 53.3 to the U.S. dollar, down 0.79 percent from the start of trading. Bloomberg is tracking the rate here.
And Brent Crude is selling for $68.36 a barrel, down 0.71 percent on the day. Bloomberg is tracking the price here.
ZEN AND THE ART OF OIL PRICES AND CURRENCY TRADING
Did you ever dream of being able to watch the dollar-ruble and euro-ruble exchange rate in real time AND listen to soothing meditation music at the same time? Well, your dreams have come true! Just click this link.
MORNING OIL PRICE AND RUBLE RATE WATCH
Good morning. It's 8:07 a.m. in Prague. The price of Brent Crude is $65.52 a barrel. The ruble is trading at 53.96 to the U.S. dollar and 66.48 to the euro.
You can watch is all in real time on zenrus.ru -- and enjoy the soothing music and images!
Here's what Streetwise Professor had to say:
VVP: Not Getting His Kicks On Brent $66
Brent traded with a 66 handle for most of today. I am sure that Putin was not getting his kicks on Brent 66.
But no worries. It didn’t stay there long: it’s now trading at a 65 handle.
Going down, down, down, in a ring of fire.
DID PUTIN TONE DOWN HIS BIG SPEECH?
Simon Shuster has a new piece up at Time suggesting he did, based on a draft copy of the speech prepared by the Kremlin leader's speechwriters.
Russian President Vladimir Putin apparently cut out a blistering critique of Ukrainian authorities in a speech to human-rights advocates last week, as he seeks to carve out a peace deal with his country’s neighbor.
In a draft prepared by Putin’s speechwriters and obtained by TIME, the President was set to accuse Ukrainian authorities of the “mass destruction of their own citizens” during their ongoing conflict with Moscow-backed separatist rebels. But at the last moment, Putin appears to have dropped that line.
Read the whole piece here.
TWITTER CAMPAIGN AGAINST RUSSIAN SOPRANO ANNA NETREBKO
Anna Netrebko's decision to donate 1 million rubles to a theater in rebel-held eastern Ukraine, and her posing with a Novorossia rebel flag, has sparked a Twitter campaign under the hashtag #BoycottAnnaNetrebko.
Here are some choice tweets:
IS FRANCE THE NEW GERMANY?
What to make of French President Francois Hollande's meeting with Vladimir Putin this weekend? The Moscow Times takes a look in a story today:
The weekend meeting between the French and Russian presidents has given France a chance to become "the new Germany" for Russia, which lost its last Western ally after a falling-out with official Berlin, analysts say.
French mediation "is aimed at preventing Russia-EU relations from going to the dogs," said Tatiana Kastueva-Jean of the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI) in Paris.
Germany has traditionally been Russia's staunchest defender in Europe. But with Berlin taking a harder line in the wake of the Ukraine crisis, and particularly the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, Paris os trying to fill the void:
Though France has backed EU sanctions against Russia over Ukraine, it has taken a notably moderate stance toward Moscow.
Hollande was one of the few Western leaders who did not give Putin a hard time at a G20 meeting in Australia's Brisbane last month.
Nor have French authorities pressured French businesses to cut connections to Russia like Germany did, said Sergei Fyodorov of the Institute of Europe at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Hollande's "ostpolitik" is reminiscent of that of his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy:
There is a recent precedent for Hollande's attempts to play peacemaker with Russia: In 2008, his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy brokered the end to the "five-day war" between Russia and Georgia over the breakaway province of South Ossetia.
Right. And we all know how well that turned out. Just ask the Georgians.
Read the whole piece here.
UKRAINE: FROM PROPAGANDA TO REALITY
I just came across this now and all I can say is: wow! A brilliant, concise, tight, lively, and often funny lecture on Ukrainian and Russian history by Yale University's Timothy Snyder. It's highly informative, very entertaining, and it busts all the myths.
Watch it now!
Yale's Timothy Snyder puts Russian propaganda to the Aristotelian Test of Non-Contradiction
"We have heard there is no Ukrainian state;
And we have also heard the Ukrainian state is very repressive;
We have heard that there is no Ukrainian nation;
And we have also heard that all Ukrainians are nationalists;
We have heard there is no Ukrainian language;
And we have heard that Russians are being forced to speak the Ukrainian language;
We have heard that Russia is fighting fascism;
And, most disturbingly, we have heard that maybe fascism isn't such a bad thing after all;"