The proof of the Putin

MICEX index April 2013 to April 2014: Wheee! Via Bloomberg from Econbrowser.

In early March, the Russian stock interest lost almost 11% as Russian troops entered Ukraine, and the value of the ruble against the US dollar fell to record lows. A couple of weeks later, while American conservatives laughed at the pathetic sanctions against Russia imposed by the Obama administration, in Russia sanctions laugh at you, and there was more [jump]

Ruble depreciation over the same period (up represents lost value).

movement of the same kind. This morning, as the Ukrainian military wonders what to do about the camouflaged thugs who appear to be staging a kind of coup in various eastern cities, the markets are acting up once again.

Even though Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin may be coming to see himself as St. Vladimir the purveyor of Orthodoxy against the wicked atheists, his power comes from money, and money does not like these maneuvers. I would hope Vladimir Vladimirovich would be mindful of this and remember the fate of Tsar Boris, who ruled peacefully while Russia prospered but saw his support from the oligarchs collapse as the economy went bad and they remembered that his claim to the throne was really exceptionally sketchy.

Leonid Kuchma, who was president of Ukraine from 1994 to 2004 and may be said to know Putin pretty well, says in an interview with Radio Free Europe that Russia will not invade eastern Ukraine but will do as much mischief as it can short of that, and offers some very guarded optimism: the situation

can only be resolved with the help of the West and the United States. Russia does not recognize the legitimacy of the current government in Kyiv and will not negotiate with it. Ukraine has no chance there. Ukraine could have taken concrete steps in this direction in the beginning but we didn't do that. For instance, a delegation of lawmakers could have gone to Moscow and told the Russian side: "We are here to talk with you. If you don't want to talk to us, it means you don't want to have anything to do with us." Now we see that [U.S. Secretary of State John] Kerry has agreed with [Russian Foreign Minister Sergei] Lavrov, and a third side -- the European Union -- to sit at the negotiation table to try to find consensus.

We'll see.

Polish bass Adam Didur (1874-1946) as Musorgsky's Tsar Boris grimaces with a kind of Putinesque dyspepsia face. Via wikipedia.fr.