SIMPLY ‘PUTIN’: The Ukraine war may not end in a hurry

Russia has invaded Ukraine, beyond the areas that were already in its control. Bad news is that neither the NATO troops led by the US backing Ukraine, nor Russia on the other side, are expected to back down anytime soon. To understand why, we need to ask what both sides want.

The official line is out there in every newspaper and media outlet. However, there are some benefits of this war for both the US and Russia, as explained by an expert.

If that was tough to understand, here’s the Nicholas Cage version from the 2005 movie Lord of War. Check it out if you haven’t.

Russia has sufficient reserves and economic sanctions are not as effective as the US likes to believe.

The US is trying to block money from flowing into Russia, but that’s not gonna work, at least for a while. Russia has a strong army and enviable weapons after being one of the world’s top five military spenders in the world. Vladmir Putin has been gradually strengthening his reserves, mostly via gold. Russia’s gold reserves are now the fifth highest in the world.

There is one way to stop the war – if other powerful countries in the world intervene and mediate a settlement. But experts point out that China usually benefits from US sanctions on countries it doesn’t like. That’s why Beijing has been awfully quiet through this whole crisis. Listen to strategic affairs expert Brahma Chellaney on this Twitter Spaces session with Business Insider and Stocktwits just before the Russian invasion on Thursday.

If the war makes crude oil more expensive, Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries will like it until they lose something bigger in the process. So, at this point, no one seems keen on stopping this conflict and that’s not good for India.

India is already coming out of the pandemic with very high inflation and, even before the full-scale war, the Russia-Ukraine conflict was making things tougher. Everything from crude oil to edible oil will get even more expensive, and exports will fall because global supply chains will come to a halt once again. That’s bad for business.

No wonder, the equity market has been bleeding through its nose. So, don’t rush to buy stocks because it seems like a bargain. There’s a lot more we don’t know at this point than what we do.

This may not even be the only conflict to watch out for. Far from Ukraine, Taiwan is already nervous.

At this point it seems like we are entering a high inflation period and there are ways to make money, as explained in the video. But even for that, wait for the dust to settle.