The Impact Of Sanctions On Russia Poem by Gert Strydom

In Russia many shopping centres
are without shops,
where the Western businesses had withdrawn,
after their governments started sanctions.
Clothing stores, food and drink giants
and fast-food behemoths have withdrawn.

Even most car manufacturers
and spare-part suppliers are closed.
where the ones still active
have decreased production by 97 percent
and there is a scarcity of proper car-parts,
with spares being charged at prices
of ten times their normal cost.

This have resulted in cars being stolen
and used for travel or being cut up
for spare-parts.

The value of the Russian rouble inside of Russia
is held up by Russian state intervention
as a result of capital controls imposed by Moscow
after Western sanctions.

The rouble only looks promising on paper
and most money changers stopped dealing in it
as it is extremely volatile due to low trading volumes.

In March Russia insisted for payments in roubles
for natural gas after the rouble had been down
forty percent from pre-war levels.

The Central Bank of Russia has raised its interest rates to
twenty percent to bump up the demand for the rouble
but more than this the Russian regime has forced
export based businesses to convert eighty percent

of their foreign currency into roubles and further
the Russian government has capped the amount of
remittances of individuals to another country
to ten thousand United States dollars.

Russia has just defaulted on sovereign foreign debt
in Eurobonds that was originally due on 27 May 2022
and have passed the 30-day grace period
without really paying,

according to Bloomberg
amounting to interest payments
of a hundred million United States dollars
and it is the first time since 1998.

According to Dmitry Peskov,
the Kremlin spokesperson
the payment was blocked at Euroclear because of
Western sanctions and it is "not our problem, "

but take note that Russia did pay in rouble,
which they can print just as much as they want to,
as Zimbabwe at a time did.

Putin says that the BRICKS countries:
Brazil, Russia, India, China
and South Africa is working
on setting up a new global reserve currency

and according to independent analyst Corrie Kruger:
"member states are developing reliable
alternative mechanisms for international payments.
The group said it was working on setting up
a joint payment network to cut the reliance
on the Western financial system. The BRICS
countries have been boosting the use of local
currencies in mutual trade."

He gives two graphs to compare the Russian Rouble
to the South African rand without mentioning
any of the things that holds the Russian currency up,
that I have pointed out.

Neither does Corrie Kruger mention that both Russia
and China are both totalitarian, that this new currency
will be a State Controlled Crypto Currency
and that the State Controlled Crypto Currency of China
is not as great a success as China makes it to be.

Corrie Kruger does not point out that the government
will control whatever funds a person does possess,
that the government will control what you can buy and not,
that the government can take your funds as Canada
had done to the truck-drivers with who it was at odd,
where in Canada the Crypto currency is already functioning.

The other big danger is that the funds of other countries,
the personal funds of private citizens might be used
to help Russia finance its Ukrainian war,
to boost the faltering Russian economy.

Further Corrie Kruger writes: "Previously Russia has said
they would only accept roubles, gold or Bitcoin for energy
exports to "unfriendly" countries. No dollars or euros
will be acceptable, given that the Western financial system
has told Putin he can no longer use dollars or euros
to purchase anything. As a result, Putin is demanding roubles,
gold or bitcoin. And that means the Russian rouble is
now backed by something real. If you buy roubles,
one can trade those roubles for natural gas or oil."

This is the same analyst that said he accompanied
the late president Nelson Mandela and that
with the dissolving of the USSR, NATO and America
did guarantee not to expand and to include former
Soviet states, so as if America or NATO
would have spoken for sovereign countries
that is not a part of them or that on this Russia
can hold similar sentiments.

Corrie Kruger is also of the opinion:
"a new reserve currency not controlled
by any individual country would be more desirable.
Meanwhile, BRICS countries should peg
their currencies to gold to solve the worldwide
problem driven by the US dollar. There is a number
of commentators who believe that roubles have a
future; the dollar has not. The persistent printing
of more dollars renders the dollar to be systematically
destroyed. And with it, the future of the US is being
rapidly eroded by the day, ultimately leaving
the American people impoverished."

I have come to realize that the Biden administration,
has no clue of even basic economics. This is a big
statement but let me illustrate this: Russia has said
that it is pegging its rouble to gold. The thing with
gold is that as soon as there is war in the world,
especially with a major country then the price
of gold rises, as people loose trust in the value
of currencies that do include dollars and buy gold.
The more they buy gold the less are available
and the more the price goes up and this is
basic economics.

America has just stopped Russia from selling
and exporting gold to stop it from using
whatever it ears with those sales from financing
its war-effort. This will drive the price of gold
up as less are being sold on the market.

If all of the BRICS countries peg their currencies
on gold as Corrie Kruger is suggesting it will have
a great effect on the US dollar and what it is worth.

If all the BRICS countries like Russia is forced to do,
stop trading their gold which is being produced
and peg their currencies on gold it will drive
the price of gold to record levels and in all probability
destroy the US dollar and a lot of other currencies
and it will bring back gold as a measure of the value
of what the currency of a country is worth.

It is open knowledge that Great Britain has huge
gold reserves that it holds and some other countries
have reserves as well but the USA has got very little
gold en Saudi-Arabia has stopped using the USA dollar
for oil and fuel sales and are turning to the Chinese currency.

Corrie Kruger is right that gold is something real
to peg a currency to. In this past month BITCOIN has
fallen to record lows and some other Crypto currencies
have been wiped out.

Here is the current production of gold
by the BRICS countries:

Brazil 99 metric tonnes of gold,
Russia 363.5 metric tonnes of gold,
India 1.6 metric tonnes of gold,
China 3241 metric tonnes of gold
and South Africa 106 metric tonnes,
where it had been 189 metric tonnes in 2010.

Corrie Kruger adds to this: "One need to serious rethink
the strength of the dollars as a reserve currency to
preserve value. Few people will believe that in the
current situation, with all the sanctions in place,
that the Russian rouble is stronger against the
US dollar over five years. But it is."

There is truth in it that Joe Biden's
administration do constantly print dollars,
that does degrade the value of the dollar,
where goods / products become less than the dollars,
that Biden his stopping of oil-exploration,
where socialistic to a communist
level he is driven with his "Woke"
and "Green new deal" ideals,
where the forced movement to electricity
that is not really sustainable yet,
do create terrible inflation in America
and the world and by doing this,

drives oil-prices sky-high
where less oil is being produced
and it lets inflation go to record levels,
where in the time of Jimmy Carter

in the seventies there had been
this kind of economic nonsense,
where Russia do greatly depend on oil and gold
sales but probably Corrie is quoting commentators
in communist China,
totalitarian Russia, Brazil
and India that has own interests in these remarks,
where the economies of totalitarian regimes
are not set on free-market principles.

Inside Russia the rouble is at
a seven-year high
from the state-interventions
and oil-sales where India
and other countries
are buying discounted oil.

Putin's Russia is running short of weapons,
ammunition and soldiers
and in a attempt to grab at more money
from oil-sales like socialists,
communists and totalitarian regimes do,

Putin has on the 30th of June 2022
signed a decree to all the rights of Shakalin-2
and thus has stripped away the 27.5 percent
share of British / Dutch Shell,
the 12.5 percent share of Mitsui
and the 10 percent share of Mitsubishi
both from Japan.

Russian state controlled Gazprom
had held the other 50 percent.

On the 7th of July 2002 lawmakers
in the Russian State Duma
declared that Russia is seizing
the Skhalin-1 oil and gas project
in which ExxonMobil (XOM.N) ,
Japan's SODECO and India's ONGC
Vidash are the partners.

Pavel Zavalny, head of the energy
committee in Russia's lower house
said: "the move was an obvious next step,
where ExxonMobil has a 30% stake.
Russia's Rosneft has 20%,
Japan's SODECO has 20%
and India's ONGC-Videsh has 20%.

This speaks volumes about any entity
wanting to do business with Russia,
and where Russia has defaulted
on its foreign debt,
if those investors will get anything
out of the Russian government under Putin
it will be a miracle.

A new law is being enacted
in the Russian State Duma
that forces Russian businesses,
regardless of whose property they are
to supply for Russian special military
and counterterrorist operations
which forces down upon businesses:

to accept state orders,
to give control to the Kremlin
to change employee contracts
and working conditions
which give the right for Russia
to force workers to work through the night,
to force workers to work on weekends
to force workers to work on holidays.

The Kremlin said that this is to meet
supply shortages,
is for materials needed to repair equipment,
where it is trying to mobilize the Russian economy
for the demands of the Russian war-effort
on a great scale and mobilize manpower to do so.

From a lack of money consumption
on food has decreased in Russia by ten percent,
where thirty nine percent of all Russians feel
that they do not have enough money
to buy basic necessities
and on top of that another thirty eight percent feels
that they would not have enough money to do so
by the end of the year.

Where there is great inflation
in the Western world
at this very moment,
the inflation in Russia
is only indicated at point one percent
and this during a time
where tremendous Western sanctions
are in place against Russia
that indicates that in one or other way
the books of Russia is being tampered with,

businesses that do take-over Western businesses
are forced by Russia
to retain works that is employed in them
for another two years
if they are necessary or not,
where Russia does indicate
low unemployment figures.

Sergey Haidai, the Ukrainian governor
of Severodonenetsk says:

"Having entered the city, the Russians first
deported part of the local population,
took away the keys and then began to rob everything.
They drive up to high-rise buildings in trucks,
if the furniture is good they take it away.
It is no longer just about household appliances."

This is what an army does that has not
sufficiently been paid by the so called strong
economic Russian state. This kind of corruption
is distinct to Russian society.

Since the large scale invasion started in the Ukraine,
more than 40% of combat ready tanks, BMP's and APC's
of the Russian army has been deactivated.

On the way to repair-centres to be repaired
the vehicles are being robbed from all valuable and parts
equipment to be sold to buy liquor or traded for liquor
by Russian soldiers,
which has resulted in the defence companies refusing
to accept the damaged vehicles.

An initiative was made to organize repair brigades
near the border with the Ukraine but the problems
of equipment and parts being stolen has persisted
where a decision has been made to strengthen
the control of armoured vehicles to the repair plants.

These arms manufacturers without spare parts,
have been unable to continue the building
of the tanks.

Although Russia is being cut-off for trade
by the West Putin said
that the Russian economy
will not be closed for trade by the West,
that Russia will keep on trading
with other countries
and that the mistakes of the Iron Curtain time
will not be repeated,
as if Putin is able to control sanctions.

The Trans-Siberian Railway is dilapidating.
Numerous accidents take place on it
as well as derailing,
as happened west of the Kuenga station.

At Lake Baikal more than one thousand feet
of track was damaged
after twenty nine carriages of a coal-train derailed
at the Delyur-Tyret section of the railway.

After a fourteen freight-cars
of another train on the Trans-Siberian Railway
derailed in the Amur region,
as a result of railway couplings
the railway was blocked
where German parts to keep it in order
is not entering Russia.
This railway transports goods from China
to in Russia to keep it running as usual.