Sperbank is still fully operational, so is the Inernaqtion Investement Bank'S involvment with Russia. Only every fourth Russian bank actually is exlcuded from SWIFT.
I wonder also where all the money from the püraised military modenruaztion of the Russian forces went to? Has realyl mthis much moeny gone amiss in cporruption and dark channels as it seems, becasue certainbyl cannot say we see a huge improvmeent in their tatcics, logiostics, combat leadership, communicaiton networks, technical reliability of gera and platforms. So much invetsment wa scliamed to be done, and then we see no huige diference to how they perfomred 30, 40 years ago? That is weired. Comnpeltely unexpected for me, I expected them to perform much more efficient and modern. Possible that the greed and corruption of their leaders and militaries have weakened these reforms to a degree where all te modernisation programs were rendered almost non-efficient.
In germany meanwhile some govenrment politcians still struggle with a realistic assessment of the fallout of this war. The Green economy and climate minister Habeck:
Consumers should save energy so that it will hurt Putin a little bit, says Economics Minister Habeck. That will not be enough. The question is when he will admit that he has to abandon his own plans.
Times of crisis are times of astonishing insights - especially in politics. Old certainties are abandoned more quickly under the impact of war and threats than anyone could have imagined before.
The ban on supplying weapons to war zones is one example. The willingness to better equip the Bundeswehr with 100 billion euros is another.
Today's Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) would have opposed such plans during his time as Federal Finance Minister and Vice Chancellor. Some insight - regrettable as it is - requires a certain urgency. The war that Russian President Vladimir Putin has instigated in Ukraine has led the chancellor to rethink his position.
Robert Habeck (Greens), on the other hand, has not yet reached that point: "If you want to hurt Putin a little bit, then save energy," the German Economics Minister announced on Thursday.
A sentence that sounds as if the minister wants to shift responsibility for his policy area onto consumers. More correct would be the statement as follows: If you want to hurt Putin, then the entire national economy must become independent of Russian natural gas.
This means that the early exit from coal can no longer be maintained - at least not if security of supply has to be guaranteed at the same time.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine shows us how much our energy supply is dependent on a despot who cannot be trusted. A little saving is not enough; other energy sources are needed.
"Freedom energy" at any price - that is a brute planned economy.
And sure: wind turbines and solar panels are part of it. That's why German Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) even pathetically calls them "freedom energies." But they will not be enough to compensate for the renunciation of coal and Russian gas within a relatively short period of time.
Habeck should come to the realization: In the end, coalition agreements are often worth no more than the paper they are written on, as long as crises dictate political events as strongly as they do now.
Die Welt.
Translated with
www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)