From the Viennese blitz to the triangle with the Emirates and China, the silent Russian counter-offensive
While Europe fired a salvo in the splendid setting of Versailles, Washington decided to raise the bar in the economic dispute with Russia. After dreading the revocation of commercial privileges for Moscow, the US president announced the imposition of duties on vodka, caviar and diamonds. In the Hamptons they must not have taken it well.
In the meantime, however, Moscow launched a day of silent diplomatic counter-offensive, destined to leave its mark. The Kremlin’s deputy representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyanskiy, took the lead in opening the dance, and he took the ball on the WHO’s request to Ukraine to secure the pathogens stored in its laboratories for ask for the convening of an urgent Security Council on the subject of biological research activities with military purpose of the United States in Ukrainian territory. Dead letter in practice but request destined to remain formalized.
On the other hand, the Russian chief negotiator at the Vienna table for the Iranian nuclear agreement, Mikhail Ulyanov, who went far beyond the mossaca, who in the guilty general lack of interest – given the climate of relaxation of recent days – has blown the counter, presenting the request to include in the final document the written guarantee that the US sanctions against Russia would not become an impediment to trade, investment, economic and military cooperation between Moscow and Tehran. Having said that, the coordinator of the negotiations, Enrique Mora, today does not have that he could take note of theimpasse generated by the Russian move and decide for a break, In short, everyone at home. Just a few hours after the signing that everyone took for granted.
And the question, instrumental in order to open a procedural and bureaucratic gap in the western sanction wall, on the other hand, it risks becoming strategic. Because if the stalemate is foreshadowed longer than expected, Iran could be increased from continuing its uranium result operation, already today not particularly far from the need to obtain an atomic weapon. In that case, the United States and Israel were forced to put a chapter of crisis they thought they would solve at the top of the agenda. All in the midst of the conflict in Ukraine and with the strong risk that a tightening of sanctions against Tehran will be seen as a further aggressive act by ChinaCountry with very strong commercial and military ties with the Ayatollahs.
But that’s not enough. In the afternoon, in fact, when Bitcoin had just climbed above $ 40,000 in early US trading{{}} a news beaten by Reuters it caused the prices of all cryptocurrencies to plummet: Russia would be using the United Arab Emirates as a hub for the settlement of Bitcoin, in fact another by-pass with respect to the capital freezing regime linked to sanctions and expulsion from SWIFT. And according to rumors from Abu Dhani to the news agency, it would be an alluvial flow of billions that from Russia would pass through the unofficial Arab clearing in order to obtain results due: invest in local real estate using cryptocurrencies directly or use on-site nominee companies to buy Bitcoin in hard currencies to be conveyed elsewhere. According to Reuters, none of the requests received by the Emirati counterparts was less than 2 billion dollars.
Finally, China. Which up to now has used a proverbial and very Confucian diplomacy in approaching the Ukrainian crisis, in fact, attacking sanctions and NATO but also putting their banks on the line with respect to oil purchases. In this case, the granting of letters of credit necessary for the buyers of the Dragon to negotiate on Ural crude oil. no sooner said than done, Russian oil giant Surgutneftegaz (Surgut) has allowed Chinese counterparties to receive cargoes of crude oil without having to provide the necessary guarantees. That is, precisely those letters of credit that the Chinese central bank has decided to be put on standby for a while.
A risk for the Russian company, almost an operation on trust but also the only immediately usable strategy to reduce the commercial fast that has seen many energy operators forced to operate discounts on Urals compared to Brent. And often remaining without buyers anyway. Furthermore, the Beijing authorities are said to be turning a blind eye to another practice of circumvention of sanctions. Based on the use of open accounts that allow the customer to purchase goods on the basis of a different payment agreement and which contemplates the need for balance only three days after loading the cargo. Finally, always from China they pointed out a Reuters to come payment in dollars is still possible until June, due to a grace period linked to the timing of implementation of US sanctions on SWIFT. Does the sanctioning bazooka already run the risk of running out of rockets to fire?