Markets plunge on Ukraine crisis; Russia’s central bank intervenes [Russian markets panic]

The Globe and Mail ^ | 3 March 2014 | Eric Reguly

[Alter Kaker]

Russian markets plunged Monday morning as investors reacted to the prospect of Western-led economic sanctions aimed at punishing president Vladimir Putin for Russian actions in Crimea.

The selloff prompted the Russian central bank to take aggressive action to try to stabilize the markets. As the ruble sank to new lows against the euro and the dollar, the bank raised interest rate by 150 basis points (1.5 percentage points), lifting it to 7 per cent.

[bert]

If Ukraine shuts off EU gas, Vlad will shut of Ukrainain gas.

The gas is talked about but is moot. That movie has already been shown

[HereInTheHeartland]

No one has yet brought up the foolishness of Germany shutting down all of their nuke power plants.
This exposes what catastrophically foolish move that will prove to be.

[DoodleDawg]

What will Europe do if the Ukrainians shut the gas off? The pipeline in Ukraine belongs to Ukrainians. Europe has no control over the pipeline, Ukrainian, or the gas, Russian.

That's their fear. So they aren't going to do anything that might anger Putin. They may take some meaningless stands, cancel a few visits, make a few speeches. But Europe will not take any position to force Putin to give up the Ukraine. And if Europe won't take a stand then anything the U.S. does will be meaningless as well. And that would be true if Romney or McCain were in the White House.

[meatloaf]

The Euro weenies don’t have to anger Putin. The Ukrainians already kicked the shit wagon over. We’ll see what happens as the Ukrainians mobilize their reserves. They’ve started calling up Ukrainian males subject to military duty.

[meatloaf]

That is the biggest issue between Russia and Ukraine. If you check the temperatures in Ukraine, they’re about at the point most Ukrainians could get by without the gas. The comment has been made that Putin has succeeded in doing something no one else in history has done. His actions have united the Ukrainians. Even the majority of the ex-president’s Party of the Regions are against Putin who is claiming that their man is still the legitimate president.

If that doesn’t tell you something about Ukrainian resolve, nothing will.