Reaction to Putin/Russia Invasion of Ukraine - Resources for People in Ukraine, NATO & Geopolitics

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As everyone knows Russia has invaded Ukraine. Given one of my companies has 3 offices in Ukraine I've spent much of the last couple days doing what's possible to help them and get those who are able out of the country. Fortunately, some of them were out of the country at the time but it's very horrible for those who were in Ukraine.

For anyone who has people in Ukraine who'd like to try to help please feel free to send a message through https://www.offshorecitizen.net and we'll be happy to share whatever resources we have.

Some background on the situation is Putin has said for 20 years that he would consider the admission of Ukraine into NATO to be a direct security threat to Russia but rather than listen to this and attempt to negotiate NATO has pushed forward on the matter. Had the west negotiated with Putin offering a guarantee that Ukraine would under no circumstances be admitted into NATO for a minimum of 10 years would it have prevented the invasion? Very hard to say but given how terrible the outcome is for the Ukrainian people it seems like it would have been worth it. Instead, the head of NATO and also Biden as recently as 24 hours ago said "NATO's doors are wide open to any who would like to join".

Another factor that has been instrumental in encouraging this is the political isolation of China. Western nations chose to boycott the Beijing Olympics and Putin attended where he met with Xi. In my estimation, he probably cleared the invasion of Ukraine with Xi at that time and to date, China is the one major power that has not condemned or sanctioned Russia. Instead, they have taken a soft joint stand against US supremacy. You can read the declaration from the Kremlin here:

http://en.kremlin.ru/supplement/5770

Some Chinese state-owned banks have restricted financing of Russian commodity purchases in USD (mainly not issuing letters of credit against them) but still issue them in RMB. It's worth noting that Russia no longer trades oil with China in USD but has moved instead to RMB, which further weakens the ability of the US to negatively affect Russia with sanctions.

Without Chinese support, sanctions seem like they will have relatively little effect.

From a power asymmetries perspective, Ukraine is clearly outmatched militarily what they have is motivation and pride. Biden has promised $600 million in financial aid in their efforts but realistically it is unlikely they'll be able to hold out, which means the initial war will likely end quickly.

Putin has likely learned from Afghanistan and cannot afford to repeat that process so will probably not want to hold the entire country, though he can't take simply part of it as that portion would be driven into NATO's arms. He'll likely install a puppet leader who he's probably already chosen in advance and withdraw forces to the east where he can provide support. It seems likely unfortunately that this could result in years of guerilla warfare resistance and make the country much more dangerous for the next decade.

NATO and in particular the US are of course much more powerful than Russia but impotent in their ability to exercise that power first because they cannot risk nuclear war and because they don't have the support of China. Back in 2014 when Russia took Crimea they sanctioned top Russians, which was essentially a dress rehearsal for this. Likely Putin has been planning for the last 10 years. In the words of a regional political leader I spoke to on the matter, Putin likely has a long-term view and is prepared for the Russian people to endure considerable pain to destabilize the region and exert political pressure on surrounding nations.

The other barrier to effective sanctions is the west relies on Russian oil and gas. 50% of all gas in Germany comes from Russia, energy prices have already risen 3x in the last year. Russia meanwhile has low debt, huge foreign reserves, and gold doesn't rely on the global internet instead having their own services such as Yandex and so long as they can trade with China they can gain access to most of what they need.

For Russians, it will be harder to get residencies and citizenships as well as banking.

Markets tend to do well after invasions, interest rate hikes no longer seem likely.

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