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The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the powerful Middle Eastern oil cartel, stuck to its planned incremental production increase, shrugging off calls from the West for greater supply. Both the cartel and Russia, collectively known as OPEC+, will stick to their plan to raise production by a modest 432,000 barrels per day in June, multiple delegates told Reuters, despite pleas from the Biden administration. The White House has repeatedly called upon OPEC+ to boost its oil output over the last year as supply chains have been snarled amid the COVID-19 pandemic recovery. White House national security adviser Jake...

Germany will support the European embargo of Russian oil, marking another significant turnaround in the nation’s position as the invasion of Ukraine continues. Ambassadors will reportedly table the proposal at an ambassadors summit in Brussels on Wednesday, with expectations to approve the embargo by the end of next week. Germany has resisted such an embargo, but government sources told German news agency dpa on Sunday that Chancellor Olaf Scholz will back the embargo. Scholz previously urged caution against any outright ban over concerns of the consequences, which he believed would prove devastating to Germany’s economy and the continent as a...

Russia this week stopped the flow of natural gas to Poland and Bulgaria. The two former Soviet satellite states have defied the Kremlin by supporting Ukraine in its efforts to repel the Russian assault. And in some places, the effects of the gas shut-off are already being felt. Wilson Dizard has more in this report. ...

Putin’s machismo leads him to underestimate his adversaries and show off for domestic and international consumption. Unsurprisingly, his favorite tactic is unprovoked aggression—in other words, the bluff. He got away with it in Georgia in 2008, Syria from 2012 onward, in annexing Crimea in 2014 ...Yet last month, he was caught completely off guard when the West finally called his biggest raise ever. As boxer Mike Tyson said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” The West’s reactive jab of sanctions and aggressive arming of the Ukrainians appear to have completely stalled—and now reversed—Russia’s advance on...

The EU faces difficult questions that need to be debated now rather than later. Europe needs a strong deterrent against Moscow, and that will only be possible if France and Germany team up to advance the debate. In the end, the meeting at the United States airbase in Ramstein, Germany, resembled a ribbon ceremony with praise awarded to the most diligent. Germany is a great friend that is doing everything it can to support Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said. It was not only thanks for the Germans’ proposal to send tanks to Ukraine, but also the polite...

Bulgaria's main ruling alliance has responded to a Russian gas cutoff by abandoning the hesitancy that has kept that Black Sea state from supplying military aid to Ukraine, capping off two days of political messaging with visiting Prime Minister Kiril Petkov declaring outside the Ukrainian capital that it would be "inhuman to remain uninvolved" as Russia's invasion unfolds. After Gazprom suspended natural gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland amid escalating fallout from the 8-week-old war, Petkov and his We Continue The Change alliance vowed on April 27 that all 67 of its lawmakers will back military assistance for Kyiv in...

Ukraine accused Russia of blackmailing Europe over energy in an attempt to break its allies, as fighting heads into a third month without Russia capturing a major city WARSAW/SOFIA/KYIV — Russia halted gas supplies to Poland under the Yamal contract on Wednesday, data from the European Union network of gas transmission operators showed, in a deepening of the rift between the West and Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. Bulgaria, like Poland a NATO and EU member, said earlier that Russia would also halt supplies of gas to it. Ukraine accused Russia of blackmailing Europe over energy in an attempt...

Russia decided to make "unfriendly nations" pay for its gas in rubles after the Western countries and their allies imposed harsh sanctions on Moscow over its military operation in Ukraine.Gazprom, major Russian gas company, is to suspend supplies to Bulgaria starting from April 27, the Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported on Tuesday, citing a statement from the Bulgarian economy ministry. The ministry announced that the country’s state-owned company Bulgargaz and the Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH) assessed the possibility of implementing the new two-stage payment procedure proposed by the Russian government and said it “does not comply with the contract valid until...

On Sunday, Russia entered the third month of its invasion of Ukraine, with no sign of an end in sight. Despite severe pushback in the shape of the toughest economic sanctions ever imposed on a country, the ruble, the Russian currency, appears to be strengthening.What’s become evident is that, despite an enormously broad package of sanctions on Russia’s government and oligarchs, as well as an exodus of foreign enterprises, the moves are mostly ineffectual if foreign nationals continue to consume Russian oil and natural gas, which supports the ruble.On Feb. 24, the first day of the invasion, the ruble traded...

In revealing testimony before the Duma parliament, the head of CBR told she had to throw everything but the kitchen sink just to prevent a full-blown run on the banking system. “The sanctions imposed against Russia affected the situation in the financial sector, spurred the demand for foreign currencies, and caused fire sales of financial assets, a cash outflow from banks, and surging demand for goods,” said Elvira Nabiullina ... Presenting the CBR’s annual report to parliament, Nabiullina painted a picture to lawmakers of just how grim the situation was that confronted her. Depositors withdrew 2.4 trillion rubles in the...

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has issued a statement to India Today clarifying the rubles for gas mandate that has created confusion among Russia’s gas buyers, RT has reported on Tuesday. Buyers purchasing Russia’s gas will have to pay Gazprombank, an independent institution. -snip- Buyers can still, therefore, pay in the currency of their choice. But Gazprombank will convert the payment into rubles. Gazprom would then be able to access the funds in rubles, assured that those funds would not be subject to sanctions. “They won’t be able to keep this money in their banks. They will still pay in...

Russia's attempt to pay for two of its dollar bonds using rubles was deemed a potential default scenario by a derivatives industry watchdog on Wednesday, bringing the country to the brink of its first default in a century. The Credit Derivatives Determinations Committee — a panel within the The International Swap and Derivatives Association — ruled that a "potential failure to pay" event had occurred, Reuters first reported. It is still possible for Russia to avoid a default if it manages to pay bondholders using dollars before a one-month grace period ends on May 4. Russia has become increasingly cut...

The US and its allies have slapped a grand total of over 9,600 sanctions against Russian officials, the state, companies, tycoons and other entities in connection with the crisis in Ukraine. Moscow now has more restrictions against it than Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela and Myanmar combined. Russia has successfully withstood unprecedented sanctions pressure from the West, President Vladimir Putin has said. "The calculation was to quickly undermine the financial and economic situation in our country, to provoke panic in the markets, the collapse of the banking system, and a large-scale shortage of goods in stores," Putin said, speaking at...

he Russian central bank sharply cut its key rate to 17% on Friday and said future cuts were possible, as emergency steps had contained the risk to financial stability, brought deposits back to banks and helped limit the threat of inflation, it said. -snip- Annual inflation in Russia accelerated to 16.70% as of April 1, its highest since March 2015 and up from 15.66% a week earlier, as the volatile rouble sent prices soaring amid unprecedented Western sanctions which cut Russia off the global financial markets and limited its trade with the outside world. External conditions for the Russian economy...

The ruble appreciated to 83 to the dollar intraday on Tuesday against a record low of 139 on March 7.The ruble has recouped most of its losses and become the top-performing currency globally. It continues to gain and is up 60 per cent against the US dollar from its lows in the first week of March. The ruble appreciated to 83 to the dollar intraday on Tuesday against a record low of 139 on March 7. Thanks to the recent rally, the ruble is only about 10 per cent lower than what it was before the Russian invasion of Ukraine...

Germany wants to end all fossil fuel imports from Russia, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Tuesday. "Germany wants to completely phase out fossil fuel dependence on Russia," Baerbock told the Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue conference. "Germany has already halved its imports in the last few weeks, especially in hard coal, and we will not only halve this in all other areas, we will also completely phase out fossil fuels that come from Russia," she added.