Shipping giants steer clear of Russia as Western net tightens

[Yonnie3]

Last edited Tue Mar 1, 2022, 12:02 PM - Edit history (3)

Source: Reuters

March 1 (Reuters) - The world's biggest shipping lines MSC and Maersk (MAERSKb.CO) on Tuesday suspended container shipping to and from Russia, deepening the country's isolation as its invasion of Ukraine sparks an exodus of Western companies.

The West has imposed heavy restrictions on Russia to close off its economy and block it from the global financial system, pushing companies to halt sales, cut ties and dump tens of billions of dollars worth of investments. read more

The curbs have made Russia a no-go area for many of the world's foreign-owned container ships, closed airspace to Russian aircraft, shut out some Russian banks from the SWIFT global financial network, and restricted Moscow's ability to use its $630 billion in foreign reserves. read more

"We already had (Russia and Belarus) on a low rating," Stephen Bird, chief executive of $727 billion asset manager abrdn (ABDN.L), told Reuters on Tuesday. "After the conflict we deemed them non-investable."

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Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/western-companies-pullout-russia-expected-accelerate-2022-03-01/

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I also note that Maersk halts seaborne shipping to Ukraine until end of Feb

https://www.reuters.com/business/maersk-halts-seaborne-shipping-ukraine-until-end-feb-2022-02-24/Maersk/Maersk

COPENHAGEN, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Shipping group Maersk said on Thursday it has halted all port calls in Ukraine until the end of February and has shut its main office in Odessa on the Black Sea coast, as a consequence of the conflict with neighbouring Russia.

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[Happy Hoosier]

1. Excellent. Was hoping to hear this.

It's bad that this is going to impact the Russian people, but it is necessary. My sense is that this only stops when Putin is GONE.

[Chainfire]

3. The Russian people are responsible for Putin's actions.

And it is the Russian people who are manning the tanks and APCs in an unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation. They need to know that war comes at a cost. If they consider the death of their young men, isolation and economic hardship an excessive cost, then they know what to do about it. The Russian people would be welcomed back into the social and economic world if they correct their errors and ridded themselves of the criminals that run their homeland. Russians are not bad people, they have just allowed bad people to thrive in their house.

I think that Biden is the genius of this situation. He is keeping a cool head and is ruthlessly attacking with bloodless weapons. There are not the inspiring film clips of "the rockets red glare" of missiles striking enemy targets, but he is sowing destruction that the Russian leadership will feel. The Russian leadership do not care how many of their young men have to die to secure their positions, but they care a great deal about their personal wealth and power; that is what Biden, and the rest of the free world, is taking from them. He is showing the Russian people what a mess that Putin has made for them in the pursuit of more wealth, fortune and power. I am proud of our President.

I do not embrace religion, but I do not cast away some of the wisdom found in religious texts:

For everything there is a season, and a time for every [a]purpose under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

[Happy Hoosier]

4. To an extent. yes.

But as the son of a mother who grew up in Berlin WWII, I am also sensitive to the fact that people will suffer who do not support Putin or who have basically no voice or means to resist at all.

But it must be done.

[Chainfire]

6. War does not come without cost.

The aggressor does not get a free ride. Hitler brought the suffering to the people of Germany with the promise of the three Ps. What are the three Ps Alex? Peace and Prosperity, and a Place in the world. He did it with the overwhelming support of the German people, until everything started collapsing around them.

In Jan. of 1944 a vast majority of Germans supported Hitler, by Jan. 45, it was hard to find a devoted Nazi outside of the SS. By the Summer of 45, no one in Germany had ever been a Nazi, nor did they know anyone who had ever supported Hitler.

The Russian people should take heart in how the West treated the German people and the German Nation after they were rid of their criminal leaders. Of course, there were growing pains with the German Nation in shambles, but we worked hard to restore Germany as a sovereign nation in control of its own destiny. Perhaps the Russians will not wait until their nation is in economic ashes to make the transition.

We are in danger of this war spinning completely out of control. Less we are willing to potentially sacrifice the species, the solution will have to come from inside Russia. We can not and should not take out Putin, the Russians should.

[Dorn]

10. Not sure that is true, Russia has a 'managed democracy' -- similar to what republicians want in US

Search for Managed Democracy; I am not convinced that the Russian people want to kill Ukrainians, they are closely tied for many years.

[gab13by13]

2. This has to leave a mark.

[samsingh]

5. russia is non-investable now. The west opened their arms to help the russia after the USSR collapse

in return we got cyber attacks, proxy wars in the Middle East, and invasions of countries in Asia - Ukraine being the third or fourth that putin has attacked. We did nothing when he took Georgia, Crimea, and regions of the Ukraine. This did not make him stop, or stop the republican traitors who have been in cohoots with the russian dictator.

[Chainfire]

7. The Russian people are not beyond redemption.

Perhaps they will need to be a little hungry to make things happen. It beats hell out of playing Putin's game.

[Mr. Evil]

8. If I (or most anyone for that matter)

asked someone else to kill another person, I'd be arrested, tried, convicted and then sent to prison for solicitation of murder, conspiracy to commit murder and probably a few other charges. Putin (and others like him) can simply order the deaths of and indiscriminately kill these people (men, women and children) with impunity. Like flicking a light switch. Then he simply goes about his daily business. Yes, sanctions will hurt Russian commerce and its people but, he most likely has enough money and sustenance squirreled away to last years. Putin is the very definition of a psychopath. Someone that would kill numerous people, run over numerous more on the way home and then calmly sit down for dinner and a movie.

He just wants Ukraine. The people are of no consequence to him. He is under the delusion that he can bring back his perceived power and glory of the old USSR. Never going to happen. But, in his mind it is needed to satisfy his lust for more power and relevancy.

The world's response is admirable and even amazing in this situation. But, we cannot be constrained by NATO rules or protocols. This is about democracy and most importantly, humanity. This one man cannot be allowed to simply take what he wants at the expense of millions because of his warped outlook. He thinks he's holding a royal flush when he really only has a busted straight.

His time has come and gone. He deserves nothing short of the Mussolini treatment.

[Chainfire]

9. I think that it is more sinister than just wanting Ukraine.

The Russian justification for taking Ukraine is to make it more difficult for NATO to attack Russia. That in itself is a militarily correct position; it puts the vast Russian plains behind him and Poland on his effective border. But by the same reasoning that applies to that justification, occupying Ukraine will place the Russian Army in a position that makes an attack on NATO more likely to succeed. So you have to ask yourself, which is more likely, that NATO would attack Russia in a war for land and resources or that Russia would attack a NATO country for the same reasons. I think that Putin has made that answer completely transparent.

We know that he wants to restore the borders of the former failed USSR and that includes Poland and East Germany. We know that he has his eyes on Finland and Sweden because he has already threatened their security. If he takes and holds Ukraine, it is a clear and direct threat to all of Europe and with Europe out of the picture, it also threatens the US. We have to draw a line somewhere. Ukraine beats the Hell out of drawing it in Berlin. For the Americans that think that Putin is some kind of hero, all I can tell you is that you are self-destructive fucking idiots who want to take all of us down with you.

Putin's Russia wants to take by force what they are unable to attain on their own, which includes a functioning economy. The Soviets couldn't do it and neither could the Russian Federation. What they can not fathom, is that if they got Western Europe, they would fuck it up in less than five years. Then what?