Guo Shuqing, Chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, attended a press conference at the Information Office of the State Council for Promoting the High Quality Development of the Banking and Insurance Industry on March 2, 2021 in Beijing.
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BEIJING – China’s banking and insurance regulator said Wednesday that the country opposes and will not join financial sanctions against Russia.
“Everyone is watching the recent military conflict or war between Russia and Ukraine,” Guo Shuqing, chairman of China’s Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, told a mandarin news conference, according to a CNBC translation. “China’s position is clearly expressed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Our international policy is consistent.”
“With regard to financial sanctions, we do not support this,” Guo said, noting in particular opposition to “unilateral” sanctions, which he said did not solve problems effectively. “China will not join such sanctions.”
Guo is also secretary of the Chinese Communist Party of the People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank. He added on Wednesday that he hopes all countries will maintain a normal economic exchange and that sanctions have so far had no visible effect on China.
China’s foreign ministry has refused to call Russia’s attack on Ukraine an invasion. Beijing’s line is to encourage negotiations as China tries to position itself further away from Russia than was presented in early February during a high-level meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union have tried to impose sanctions on Russia, first in an attempt to prevent a conflict with Ukraine and then in pushing Putin to stop his invasion of Ukraine.
(Bloomberg) – Europe is splitting Sberbank of Russia PJSC’s business in the region after sanctions over President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine led to the flight of local deposits.
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Austria-based Sberbank Europe AG will be liquidated through local insolvency proceedings, while all shares in its Croatian and Slovenian subsidiaries will be transferred to other companies in those countries, according to the Single Restructuring Board, which deals with insolvent European creditors. Shares of the parent company, listed in London, fell 90% on Wednesday, while trading in Russian shares remained closed.
Read more: Sberbank fell 90% in London, and the local market is still closed
The United States and the European Union are stepping up measures against Russia by blocking some of the national banks in various parts of the global financial system. As early as last week, the United States said it was sanctioning five of Russia’s largest creditors, including Sberbank and VTB Bank PJSC. While Sberbank in Europe is only part of the lender’s overall business, its closure is an additional blow to Russia.
“I think it’s fair to say that it was a bank run, which was really caused by increased geopolitical risk and sanctions,” Elke Koenig, who runs SRB, told reporters on Wednesday. “This is not insolvency due to negative equity, but insolvency due to lack of liquidity.
On Monday, SRB suspended most payments at three of the bank’s branches after the European Central Bank ruled that Sberbank Europe and its subsidiaries in Croatia and Slovenia were unlikely to be able to pay their debts or other debts.
Hrvatska Postanska Banka, the only large state-owned bank in Croatia, will acquire Sberbank’s business in the country, while Nova Ljubljanska Banka will take over operations in Slovenia. Bloomberg announced their offers earlier on Tuesday.
Units in both countries will open on Wednesday “as usual, without interruption to depositors or customers,” SRB said. “They are already part of well-established, stable and stable banking groups.”
The Austrian financial markets regulator has said it has banned Sberbank Europe from continuing to do business. This triggers compensation for customers, giving the country’s guarantee system 10 banking days to pay up to 100,000 euros ($ 111,260) to a depositor.
Covered deposits
Sberbank has decided to withdraw from the European market after facing an accumulation of deposits, Russia’s largest lender said in a statement on its website. The bank failed to provide liquidity to its subsidiaries due to an order from Russia’s central bank, but local assets are enough to pay off all depositors, Sberbank said.
Koenig confirmed this, saying she was “very confident” that Sberbank Europe’s assets would cover its deposits, although it was not yet clear whether they would be enough for all its liabilities. Sberbank Europe previously reported 13.6 billion euros in assets.
The Austrian Deposit Guarantee Fund, backed by the country’s banks, said on Wednesday that it covers about 913m euros out of 1 billion euros in total deposits in the local unit. Sberbank’s Vienna-based division has about 35,000 private depositors, almost exclusively based in Germany but protected by the Austrian system.
Including Sberbank, the seven-year-old SRB has dealt with the bankruptcy of six banks, the last of which is in 2019. In most of these cases, creditors have been terminated under national insolvency law. The last time SRB decided to restructure, as it did with Sberbank’s Slovenian and Croatian branches, was in 2017, when it imposed losses on Banco Popular Espanol SA’s investors and transferred the creditor to larger competitor Banco Santander SA.
The Brussels-based regulator is monitoring lenders with cross-border business and other major banks, leaving the bankruptcy of smaller banks, such as Greensill Bank AG in Germany last year, in the hands of national authorities.
The European Commission states in a separate statement that the Czech authorities have decided to close and liquidate the Sberbank branch in this country, and depositors are entitled to the same legal compensation as in Austria. Regulators in Hungary have also ordered the closure of Sberbank’s Budapest branch.
VTB Bank OJSC, a Russian lender that has come under tougher sanctions than Sberbank, does not accept new customers in its German division, but existing customers who are not subject to sanctions can gain access to their deposits, said German regulator BaFin. -early this week.
“For now, the financial system in Europe is definitely a stable financial system, but of course you never know what the future holds,” Koenig said. “But I would not consider something inevitable on our part. Needless to say, Russian-owned banks are under stress.
(Updates with previous authorization actions in paragraph 12)
INDIANAPOLIS – Mitchell Trubiski signed a one-year contract with Buffalo Bills to resume his career after four years in the spotlight with the Chicago Bears.
But the bills are realistic for the quarterback’s future, realizing he will likely be given the opportunity to compete for the lead instead of returning for another year as Josh Allen’s reserve.
“I think it’s unrealistic to think we can get him back,” said coach Sean McDermott of the NFL Scouting Combine. “But I want him to keep doing great things for him and his family that I know he will do.”
The 27-year-old Trubyski saw the pitch only in 2021, after the Bills games were out of range, but the second overall pick from the 2017 draft was learned from Allen and coaching staff, including current New York Giants coach Brian Daball. .
“It’s hard to deal with a situation in which you go from a beginner in your career to a reserve. It’s a very different dynamic, “McDermott said. “When someone else was in front of the microphone a few lockers down below yours, I thought Mitch Trubyski was doing extremely well, as well as anyone could handle.
In his four seasons with the Chicago Bears, Trubyski started 50 games, finishing 29-2. He finished 64.1% of the passes in his career with 64 touchdowns to 38 interceptions.
He was successful in Bills’ pre-season game against the Bears in 2021, finishing 20 of 28 for 221 yards and a touchdown with a pass.
“(Trubyski) married your daughter,” said general manager Brandon Bean. “… She was ready for the whole year if his number was called. Fortunately, Josh stayed healthy, but I have only positive things for him and I’m sure he will get a good chance to at least compete for a starting job this year. “
Bean noted that criticism of Trubyski was higher because of where he chose and because of what other quarterbacks in his class did, “he just would never be able to stand some of the things that (Patrick) Mahoms, (Deshon)) Watson and some of these guys did. “
As for the Bills, Allen is currently the only quarterback with a contract for 2022, and Beane said he would look into all potential avenues to find the right reserve.
“I want Peyton Manning or someone, if you have one,” Bean said. “But seriously, yes, I mean, this is an important position … We will look high and low.”
Civilian train to throw Molotov cocktails to protect the city while the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, in Zhytomyr, Ukraine, March 1, 2022 REUTERS / Viacheslav Ratynskyi
I’m registering
TOKYO, March 2 – Keichi Kurogi was one of dozens of men in Japan who offered to join the International Legion to Fight Russian Invaders after Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky called for volunteers.
Kurogi, a 39-year-old office worker living in southwestern Japan, told Reuters he called the Ukrainian embassy on Monday after seeing his request for volunteers on Twitter.
“When I saw images of elderly men and women in Ukraine holding guns and going to the front, I felt I had to go in their place,” he said.
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The embassy rejected Kurogi’s offer to fight, saying he lacked the necessary military experience.
As of Tuesday, 70 Japanese – including 50 former members of Japan’s self-defense forces and two veterans of the French Foreign Legion – had applied to volunteer, the Mainichi Shimbun reported, citing a Tokyo-based volunteer company.
A spokesman for the Ukrainian embassy confirmed that he had received calls from people who “want to fight for Ukraine”, but declined to give further details.
A post on social media on February 28 from the embassy thanked the Japanese for their many inquiries about volunteering, but added a reservation.
“Every candidate for this must have experience in the Japanese Self-Defense Forces or have undergone specialized training,” the statement said.
In a new Twitter post Wednesday, the Ukrainian embassy in Japan said it was looking for volunteers with medical, IT, communications or firefighting experience. It was not immediately clear whether the volunteers’ positions were remote or involving a trip to Ukraine.
Japan has told its citizens to postpone their trip to Ukraine for some reason, a warning repeated Wednesday by Cabinet Secretary-General Hirokazu Matsuno, who said he was familiar with the reports on the volunteers.
“The Japanese Foreign Ministry has issued an evacuation council for the whole of Ukraine, and we want people to stop all travel to Ukraine, regardless of the purpose of their visit,” he told a news conference.
“We are communicating with the Ukrainian embassy in Japan and we have indicated that there is an evacuation council.
Japan said on Wednesday it would temporarily close its embassy in Kyiv amid growing dangers in the capital.
JAPAN GIVES
The war in Ukraine has sparked strong emotions in Japan, which has a post-war pacifist constitution that has been interpreted in recent years to allow Japan to exercise collective self-defense or help allies who are under attack.
Hundreds gathered to protest the Russian invasion last week in Tokyo, while the Ukrainian embassy said it had collected $ 17 million in donations from about 60,000 people in Japan after sending an online request for help.
One of them was Ryoga Seki, a 23-year-old computer science student at Osaka University who donated a month’s salary as a part-time teacher – 100,000 yen ($ 868) – to Ukraine.
“There are a lot of people here like me who want to do something but can’t move right now,” he said, adding that this was his first big donation and the maximum amount he could transfer from his bank at once.
As for Kurogi, he is adamant that he would volunteer again if Ukraine changed its requirements.
“I come from a generation that doesn’t know war at all,” he said. “Not that I want to go to war, I’d rather go than see children forced to bear arms.”
I’m registering
Additional reports by Kantaro Komiya and Sakura Murakami; Edited by Lincoln Feast
European stocks fought for direction on Wednesday as Brent crude oil and natural gas prices rose in response to intensified Russian attacks on Ukraine’s largest cities.
The regional Stoxx Europe 600 switched between gains and losses in morning trading after a sharp decline in the previous session, as investors balanced the potential for economic consequences of the crisis with that of central banks to reverse previous signals that they are ready to end the pandemic. support.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 1.8 percent, while futures contracts tracking the S&P 500 index on Wall Street added 0.8 percent.
Brent crude, the international benchmark, rose 5.9 percent to $ 111 a barrel after US President Joe Biden declared Russia isolated from the world and hinted at new economic sanctions.
Meanwhile, European natural gas prices have reached record highs. Futures related to TTF, Europe’s wholesale natural gas price, rose more than 50 percent to 185 euros per megawatt-hour before cutting its profits to 146 euros.
Sanctions imposed on Russia by Western countries have so far sought to evade the energy sector, but have nevertheless caused instability in global markets due to fears of supply disruptions.
“Brent crude oil is the biggest factor in fears for stock markets,” said Martin Gerdinck, head of European equities at Dutch investment firm NN Partners. “If it becomes ballistic and moves to $ 150 or more per barrel, then [economic] growth is really slowing down. ”
But Ross Mayfield, an investment strategist at Baird, said: “The war has a sense of risk aversion, but it could also put the Federal Reserve and other central banks on a less aggressive path of tightening.
Yields on the German reference 10-year Bund rose 0.03 percentage points to minus 0.04 percent. This was followed by a sharp rise in US, UK and eurozone government bonds on Tuesday as derivatives markets began to price at a much slower pace than central banks, which were expected to emerge from monetary support from the pandemic era. with a series of interest rate hikes.
Yields on 10-year US government bonds rose 0.02 percentage points to 1.73%. This debt yield, which is at the heart of global borrowing costs, fell by almost 0.1 percentage point on Tuesday and returned to levels last seen in January, before Fed Chairman Jay Powell prepared financial markets for the series from aggressive interest rate hikes.
The latest oil gains, which have left Brent about 15 percent higher since President Vladimir Putin began his invasion of Ukraine, came as Russia stepped up bombings of its neighbor’s largest cities. Prices have risen, although the United States and 30 other countries have said they will release 60 million barrels of their strategic reserves.
Biden has come under increasing pressure to ban Russian oil imports, with Republicans and Democrats calling on the US president to sever energy ties with the Kremlin. In a speech on the state of the Union on Tuesday, Biden voiced support for sanctions against Russia, but stressed that price control was his “highest priority”.
Russia’s central bank said the Moscow Stock Exchange, which was not open for trading on Monday, would remain closed on Wednesday.
INDIANAPOLIS – At least until April, the NFL teams will remain outside in trade talks with Deshon Watson. But then two key pieces of information are expected to either create a grip on Texas in Houston or make it virtually impossible to deal with Watson.
This is the consensus among a handful of general managers and head coaches who have increased interest in Watson but also continued to monitor his legal status, heading to the scout factory in Indianapolis this week. In particular, the teams are monitoring the slow progress of his 22 civil cases – as well as the grand jury, which finds that Watson’s lawyer, Rusty Hardin, believes he is on the way to a resolution from April 1. This date is crucial for the teams because it is expected to unlock two significant pieces of information without which the franchisee refuses to move forward: First, whether Watson will be forced to plead guilty to a grand jury crime; and second, if the grand jury refuses to press charges against Watson, what will the NFL determine according to its policy of personal conduct, since there is no threat of interference in an ongoing criminal investigation?
As one NFC source puts it, “There are too many unknowns about ours [team] owner to sign anything. There’s just no way to even have a conversation again without something changing. It’s too risky. We just have to move on. If something happens and the picture around it becomes clearer, then I think it’s worth considering. “
Deshon Watson’s legal situation needs more clarity before other teams decide whether to prosecute him. (Photo by Don Juan Moore / Getty Images)
This is a common refrain among franchisees – the idea that Watson is free of crime opens the way to trade. The smallest decision of the grand jury would move Watson in a certain direction, which he lacks at the moment. If he is charged with a crime and faces criminal charges, the possibility of trafficking is essentially eliminated. If he is not charged, both Texans and inquiry teams may request clarity from the league office under the rules of personal conduct. Watson may still face significant political halt, but that can’t happen until he meets with NFL investigators for an interview after the criminal part of his legal background is resolved.
Once the teams know the status of the criminal investigation and then get clarity on where the league stands, then a conversation opens about the direction of its civil cases. As it is now, a judge ordered Watson to begin testifying in the coming weeks in each of the non-criminal civil cases. If a prosecutor has not filed a criminal complaint against Watson, his testimony in the lawsuits filed by these women should not be in danger of influencing a criminal charge.
Hardin disagreed with that decision during a court hearing last week, insisting to a judge that none of Watson’s testimony should continue until the criminal aspect of the charges against him has been determined.
“Deshon is more than ready to testify and testify,” Hardin said. “As his lawyer, I think it would be foolish to allow him until we know what will happen to crime.
Hardin’s request was unsuccessful during the hearing, and Watson will now be forced to testify in civil cases that do not have an external criminal complaint against them. Eight of Watson’s 22 prosecutors have filed criminal charges against him at the Houston Police Department, and the findings have been handed over to the Harris County District Attorney for consideration by the grand jury.
All this is the background that the Texans are currently struggling with, leaving the team in custody until the decision of the grand jury. Even then, the Texans will have to hope that Watson’s legal camp will speed up his cooperation with the NFL investigation and schedule an interview if it is determined that he will not be prosecuted. And even if Watson avoids charges and the League’s removal, all inquiries will have long-standing questions about his civil cases – likely to pressure Watson to settle the lawsuits, as Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross had asked before the trade deadline last year. season.
It takes a lot of moving parts out of Texas hands before we even get to the main fundamental problem with any trade, which is this: Even if Watson is acquitted by the grand jury … and even if the NFL refuses to do so aside … and even if he either wins or settles all his civil cases … the fact remains that Watson controls his trading destination. Whether the Texans like it or not, his trade ban clause and wage spike in 2022 continue to give Watson monumental levers of influence in any negotiation. And that advantage will be stronger if there is no grand jury indictment, no suspension of the NFL and no resolution of civil cases of sexual misconduct.
That’s why Texans general manager Nick Caserio can do little more than shrug when it comes to Watson’s future.
As Caserio said on Tuesday, “I would say that we are in a situation every day to deal with this. Once [legal] the information becomes more relevant or disseminated, then we will process it accordingly. My philosophy from the beginning has always been to do the right thing with the Houston Texans, and we will continue to do that here as we move forward. ”
Unfortunately for Caserio, he is not the only one who is adamant in doing the right thing for his organization. Franchisees interested in Watson will continue to do so at least until April, and that will leave this whole affair where it was for the previous 11 months: to be tried in court until some real legal momentum prevails with new information. .
“The Russian military is overbearing and precarious if Ukraine turns into a protracted war,” said Seth Jones, vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, in a social media post.
“If we accept 150,000 Russian soldiers in Ukraine and a population of 44 million, this is a force ratio of 3.4 soldiers per 1,000 people. “You can’t hold territory with those numbers,” Jones said.
He compared this ratio of Russian forces to occupations after previous wars around the world, saying that the successful ones had proportions of power that were “astronomically higher”.
For example, he said, the Allied forces that occupied Germany in 1945 had 89.3 soldiers per 1,000 inhabitants; NATO forces in Bosnia in 1995, 17.5 troops per 1,000 inhabitants; NATO forces in Kosovo in 2000, 19.3 to 1,000, and international forces in East Timor in 2000, 9.8 to 1,000.
In a 2003 review of the RAND Corp. think tank, analyst and mathematician James Quinlivan said the ratio of strength to a successful profession was about 20 to 1,000.
The ratio of US to coalition forces in Afghanistan in 2002 and Iraq in 2003 was only 0.5 to 1,000 and 6.1 to 1,000, respectively, according to statistics cited by Quinlivan.
“The large number of soldiers and police is crucial to establishing basic law and order,” Jones said. “In fact, the number of Russian troops in Ukraine is not even enough to keep big cities for long.”
And if the Russian occupiers face guerrilla warfare in the event that the Ukrainian government falls, the chances will not be in their favor, he said.
“They will be in serious danger of being torn apart by Ukrainian rebels.”
Soviet forces waged a protracted campaign against Ukrainian insurgents after the end of World War II. Guerrilla warfare lasted until the late 1940s in parts of western Ukraine, but the Soviets crushed most of the armed resistance in the early 1950s.
U.S. officials also noted how long Russia’s supply lines have become, even in the early stages of the invasion.
As a senior US official told CNN, Russia expected a quick victory and may have failed to plan enough supplies. The supply lines, this official explained, are “a certain vulnerability”.
But US officials said Monday that Russia is expected to step up operations in Ukraine.
Officials warned lawmakers at secret briefings that a second wave of Russian troops is likely to consolidate the country’s position in Ukraine and could be able to overcome Ukrainian resistance, according to two people familiar with the briefing.
“This part was discouraging,” an MP told CNN.
However, a map of Russia’s current position shows that Moscow’s forces have gained control of only a small part of Ukraine, a vast country slightly smaller than the US state of Texas.
Again, looking at past conflicts, Russia faces enormous challenges in capturing Ukraine’s urban areas, such as Kyiv.
“Urban terrain offers incredible resources and strengths for the defense force to cause a disproportionate number of casualties per attack element, to deplete the attacker’s time in the strategic environment, and ultimately to stop the momentum of the attack,” John said. Spencer and Jason Geru wrote this month for the Institute for Contemporary Warfare at West Point, home of the U.S. Military Academy.
The two, former US and Canadian soldiers, respectively, cited conflicts from World War II to the Korean War to Chechnya to Syria, where city defenders managed to inflict heavy losses on their attackers.
With a column of 40 miles (64 kilometers) of Russian military vehicles and armor lined up in the direction of Kyiv, what Spencer and Geru point out happened to Russian armor in Grozny, Chechnya, in 1995, may be especially ominous for Moscow’s current forces.
Chechen separatists, operating in teams of less than two men and using only rifles, grenades and grenade launchers, have targeted Russian armored vehicles from basements and upper floors of buildings, they wrote.
“Major tanks and other weapons cannot respond effectively to fire,” Spencer and Geru said.
Once trapped, ambush teams will strike at the vulnerabilities of Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers, strike front and rear vehicles, retreat quickly, and then move up the flanks to strike paralyzed Russian columns again. ” they said.
In three days in January 1995, a Russian brigade lost 102 of its 120 armored vehicles and 20 of 26 tanks to Chechen separatists in Grozny, they said.
If this example is even partially true of what the Russian invaders will face in the cities of Ukraine, the war will not end quickly.
