{"id":4744,"date":"2015-01-21T15:35:24","date_gmt":"2015-01-21T20:35:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=4744"},"modified":"2015-01-21T15:35:24","modified_gmt":"2015-01-21T20:35:24","slug":"expanding-russia-issues-europe-an-ultimatum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=4744","title":{"rendered":"Expanding Russia Issues Europe An Ultimatum"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/oilprice.com\/Energy\/Natural-Gas\/Expanding-Russia-Issues-Europe-An-Ultimatum.html\" target=\"_blank\">Expanding Russia Issues Europe An Ultimatum<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>Don\u2019t tell the West, but Vladimir Putin isn\u2019t changing. The Russian President has skipped their little \u2018lesson\u2019 on 21st century politics in favor of his own, unadulterated, version. In what we\u2019ve come to expect, Putin is set to formally absorb South Ossetia \u2013 Georgia\u2019s breakaway republic \u2013 and Gazprom is prepared to deny Europe up to one-quarter of its annual exports to the continent. What\u2019s more, the conflict continues in Ukraine and allegations of Russian financing are growing louder.<\/p>\n<p>As we\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/oilprice.com\/Energy\/Oil-Prices\/Russia-Abandons-PetroDollar-By-Opening-Reserve-Fund.html\">remarked<\/a>\u00a0earlier, Russia has enjoyed a less than ideal start to 2015. In line with crude prices, the ruble has tumbled nearly 60 percent since its high last June. The country is hemorrhaging its foreign exchange reserves and desperately trying to rein in capital flight, which\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.aa.com.tr\/en\/economy\/451728--russias-capital-flight-highest-ever-in-2014\">hit record levels<\/a>\u00a0in 2014 and is on track for more of the same this year. On Friday, Moody\u2019s Investors Service\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/2015-01-16\/russia-cut-to-baa3-by-moody-s-on-oil-plunge-as-junk-rating-looms.html\">slashed<\/a>Russia\u2019s credit rating to the lowest investment grade, with a cut to junk looming. The ratings cuts \u2013 which also targeted oil and gas companies Gazprom, Gazprom Neft, and LUKoil \u2013 represent serious stumbling blocks, but Western sanctions remain the primary source of Russia\u2019s financing woes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Expanding Russia Issues Europe An Ultimatum Don\u2019t tell the West, but Vladimir Putin isn\u2019t changing. The Russian President has skipped their little \u2018lesson\u2019 on 21st century politics in favor of his own, unadulterated, version. In what we\u2019ve come to expect, Putin is set to formally absorb South Ossetia \u2013 Georgia\u2019s breakaway republic \u2013 and Gazprom [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[281,349,352,2819,553,694,821],"class_list":["post-4744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-europe","tag-gas","tag-gazprom","tag-georgia","tag-nato","tag-russia","tag-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4744"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4745,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4744\/revisions\/4745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}