What has made the decisions taken made for inflation, for job loss, and most of all fear of the unknown. Industry and business investors like certainty, a lot more than uncertainty.
by Victor Cherubim
Greek Consul in Mariupol, Ukraine, ManolisAndrolakis who returned to Athens on 20 March 2022, has compared Mariupol, the southern port city of Ukraine’s total devastation to other places as bad in past conflict history. He lists perhaps, in order of destruction to Chechnya’s Grozny, Syria’s Aleppo, Britain’s Coventry, Spain’s Guernic and Soviet Union’s Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) after WW II.
Thousands of Mariupol residents have been “forcibly deported” and sent to so called, Russian “Filtration camps,”just as what happened in World War II.
A terrible human catastrophe has developed. Civilians in the besieged city of Mariupol have been warned to decide where their allegiances lie or they will face a military tribunal.
Thousands of citizens (some 400,000) are trapped and have been for weeks with no food, water or power. They were given between 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. (20 March) to leave the city via Russian humanitarian convoy. Simultaneously, a humanitarian convoy from Russia, has moved in after this deadline with food, medicines and essentials and have formed by the Ukrainian side. As at the end of day, shelling continues, as Kyiv refuses Russia’s ultimatum to surrender Mariupol.
Five key developments
1. President Zelensky of Ukraine has claimed Russian prisoners of war don’t want to return back to their country and stated that they are not being taken back.
2. President Putin has recruited 40,000 ISIS Fighters as he prepares to support his Ukrainian conflict with a volunteer force. Both these developments are unconfirmed.
3. The Russians, according to a former US General, Ben Hodges (US Army in Europe)
were said to be are running out of time, ammunition and manpower.
4. Turkey could send its Russian made S400 Missile Defence systems to Ukraine to help to defend against Russian forces.
5. Russian forces have started shelling the Port City of Odessa on the Black Sea for the first time this morning, but without casualties. The strike caused fire. Ukraine ordinarily exports wheat out of this port. It exported 18.1 million tonnes of wheat from July 2021 to March 2022. However, only 200,000 tonnes of wheat may be available for export between March and June 2022.
The impact on world’s financial markets
As Russia’s war of Ukraine stretches into nearly a month long with no clear end in sight, financial markets, have become more concerned, with the “Fear Index” is sliding higher and higher.
For the first two weeks, the number of markets, let alone Governments around the world generally interpreted the war with heightened volatility due to not only uncertainty, risk and just fear. It was no surprise, it was expected, even anticipated.
It was among other things due to price rises, inflation, interest rate hikes, as well an expected/unexpected war in Europe. The US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England joined the chorus to hike benchmark interest rates and laid out plans for further hikes this year, after months of speculation.
What has made the decisions taken made for inflation, for job loss, and most of all fear of the unknown. Industry and business investors like certainty, a lot more than uncertainty.
Who feared the most?
Whilst this fear syndrome is/or was magnifying in the West, all the time in Russia, there was a well-planned out, calculated war effort going on. Russia agreed with China, to delay the start of the conflict after the Winter Olympics in China was over. It took advantage of the diversion of the French Presidential Elections in April this year, the departure of Chancellor Angela Merkel after 16 years 16 days from office. Besides, there was the proven unpreparedness of President Joe Biden of United States to use the NFZ (No Fly Zone) to assist Ukraine among other things.
Ukraine by size, of army, navy and air force, plus weaponry, was by far at a great disadvantage compared with mighty Russia.
PresidentPutin aware of it all, took it in his stride knowing the odds were stacked against
Ukraine. All the West could do was inflict the pain of sanctions, which was a double edged sword.
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