Of Course They Jump...

And I don't mean Ukrainians favorite pastime of jumping as the method of identifying moskals in their midst--because "those who don't jump, they are moskals". I mean oil prices. 

After two weeks of silence in detailing how it would react to the G7 oil price cap, overnight the Kremlin raised the stakes for the west when state-run Tass news service quoted Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak as saying that Russia may reduce output by 500,000 to 700,000 barrels a day in response to the cap. While not yet formalized, President Putin plans to sign a decree on the nation’s reaction to the threshold on Monday or Tuesday, containing unspecified “preventive measures." “A risk-on sentiment and a weaker US dollar are helping oil today,” said Giovanni Staunovo, a commodities analyst at UBS Group AG. “The Russian comments are also helping but the market probably wants to see it before it believes, hence a muted response.”

They still didn't learn a simple fact--what Kremlin says, it does. It was told to morons that Russia IS NOT going to sell hydrocarbons to countries which implement price caps. By default that means EU. It is so simple. 

It takes a titanic effort to explain to West "educated" (euphemism for being dumbed down finances manipulator) economist how Russian economy operates. Russian strategic industries and resources are now under state's control and operate under the principles espoused in the overall Russia's geopolitical strategy. So, when necessary, the economy reorients itself. That is why West's "strategy" against Russia failed miserably, despite all immense efforts to destabilize Russia's economy and, by default, Russia's war effort. Not only it didn't imped SMO, it, actually, spurred Russia into accelerated rearmament and expansion of military, while economy recovers nicely and the output grows. You can bet your ass on those things not being taught in Western universities, not least because of the caricature on Russian history of the 20th century. 

Meanwhile, Russia and her "broken" economy continue to churn out cutting edge weapons and today the latest in the Project 677 "Lada" the submarine Velikie Luki was floated in St. Petersburg (in Russian). This is the third one of this class, two more are building and, evidently, future ones will have anaerobic propulsion. Naturally, all of these subs are carriers of not just torpedoes but 3M14 and 3M54. They are extremely silent and highly automated.      

As I constantly explain to people who try to compare submarine fleets of Russia and the US that Russia always had a very large component of SSKs, which the US Navy doesn't have. And just in the last 8 years Russia floated out 13 (thirteen) newest diesel-electric subs, all carriers of cruise missiles and extremely advanced platforms for operation in Russia's littoral and remote sea zones. Six more, both of Pr. 636 and Pr. 677 are being built and will be floated out in 2023-2024. In all--19 subs. Not too shabby, eh? So, always keep in mind when comparing two submarine fleets, since USN doesn't have SSKs and operates exclusively nuclear submarines. Russian Navy operates both. Just some food for thought for today.