Russia Withdrawal From Syria: Stop Hyperventilating, Please.

I think everyone who could, already had dropped his coin in the pile of theories on “How Putin was forced to withdraw from Syria so suddenly”. Meanwhile it is not complete withdrawal, if one reads carefully. It is also no sudden and forced move. As Cypriot Andrei Shipilov wrote on his FB page, as of March 6, 2015, 6 (six) empty Russian Ropucha-class landing vessels were waiting at sea in Eastern Mediterranean. One Ropucha (Project 775) can take 10 battle tanks and 340 men, i.e, we are talking about the lifting ability for a special forces brigade. Ropucha are also the main workhorse of the “Syrian express”, which practically stopped early in March.
So, Russia was planing in advance to pull out. It was probably a wise move, considering that going to Syria was not the brightest step by Putin in the first place. Was this decision “sold” to all involved parties as kind concession, or was not – we don’t know, but Hezbollah is pulling out as well, in the concerted and obviously pre-planed action.
In any case all these troops will show up in Novorossijsk early in April, eventually bringing reinforcement  to Russian troops in Donbass, which are still “not present there”.

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More Russian Exposure Coming to Ukrainian Government

There is no need to explain what is going on with corruption in Ukraine for those who are following the events close enough. The resignation of Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenuk seems to be imminent; it is now rather the question “when”, than “if”. The real question now is: Who is next?

The name that is floated is the Minister of Finances Nataliya Yaresko. Yes, the one who failed to draft the State Budget until late December, and forced it down the throat of the Parliament at the very last moment, without review. That one. Mrs.Yaresko is good at making new debts and imposing ridiculous tariffs though, but this is only the first part of the story.

The second part is that Mrs.Yaresko is, in fact, investment banker with noticeable exposure to Russian market.  This exposure is quite concealed, but still reliably traceable. Back in 2006 she found the Horizon Capital Fund (http://www.horizoncapital.com.ua/). The site “is currently under maintenance. We should be back shortly.” since late 2012, but the Fund is doing fine, check Bloomberg for instance. There are ways to see the site’s history . One can find in its 2012 snapshot that: “October 31: Horizon Capital Invests in Tinkoff Credit Systems Bank”. Full press-release is here: https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2012/11/01/501773/0/en/Horizon-Capital-Invests-in-TCS-Bank.html . Not much, but definitely not peanuts: the investment was for $40mln. There are no data about exit of Mrs.Yaresko from Russian market. This investment grew in its value since, and quite possibly is now in the same league as Petro Poroshenko’s confectionery factory in Lipetsk, Russia. Tinkoff Bank (https://www.tinkoff.ru/eng/) also mentions Horizon Capital in its  2013 and 2014 reports.

This means that anti-corruption drumbeat in Ukraine is actually used to elevate status of yet another bureaucrat who has mammoth conflict of interests, and de-facto cooperates with enemy. Will Yaresko be worse or better than Yatsenuk? Time will show, but at least Yatsenuk has no business in Russia.

 

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