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    U.S.-Made Technology Is Flowing to Sanctioned Russian Airlines

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    Russian customs data shows that millions of dollars of aircraft parts made by Boeing, Airbus and others were sent to Russia last year despite sanctions.Last August, Oleg Patsulya, a Russian citizen living near Miami, emailed a Russian airline that had been cut off from Western technology and materials with a tempting offer.He could help circumvent the global sanctions imposed on Rossiya Airlines after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by shuffling the aircraft parts and electronics that it so desperately needed through a network of companies based in Florida, Turkey and Russia.“In light of the sanctions imposed against the Russian Federation, we have been successfully solving challenges at hand,” Mr. Patsulya wrote, according to a criminal complaint filed Friday with the U.S. District Court in Arizona.Mr. Patsulya and his business partner were arrested Thursday on charges of violating U.S. export controls and international money laundering in a case that illustrates the global networks that are trying to help Russia bypass the most expansive technological controls in history.Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the United States has acted in partnership with nearly 40 other governments to impose sanctions on Russia, including limits on Moscow’s access to weapons, computer chips, aircraft parts and other products needed to fuel its economy and its war. The sanctions also applied to Russian airlines including Aeroflot, its subsidiary Rossiya and others.But despite these far-reaching sanctions, thousands of shipments of aircraft parts were successfully sent into Russia last year, according to a trove of Russian customs data obtained by The New York Times.The data, which was compiled and analyzed by Import Genius, a U.S.-based trade data aggregator, shows that tens of millions of dollars of aircraft parts were sent to Russian airlines explicitly sanctioned by the Biden administration, including to Rossiya Airlines, Aeroflot, Ural Airlines, S7 Airlines, Utair Aviation and Pobeda Airlines.Those shipments were made possible by illicit networks like Mr. Patsulya’s, which have sprung up to try to bypass the restrictions by shuffling goods through a series of straw buyers, often in the Middle East and Asia.For instance, dozens of shipments of copper wires, bolts, graphite and other parts marked as made in the United States by Boeing slipped into the warehouses of Aeroflot last year. They traversed obscure trading companies, free-trade zones and industrial parks in the United Arab Emirates and China, and then traveled into Russia, to help patch up Aeroflot’s dilapidated fleet.The data captures more than 5,000 individual shipments of aircraft parts into Russia over a period of eight months in 2022, from simple screws to a Honeywell-branded aircraft engine starter valued at $290,000.In all, it shows that $14.4 million of U.S.-made aircraft parts were sent into Russia during the eight months, including $8.9 million of parts that are described as being manufactured or trademarked by the U.S. plane maker Boeing and sold into Russia via third parties.Boeing said it had fully complied with U.S. sanctions and had suspended providing parts, maintenance and technical support for customers in Russia in early 2022. Experts in the aviation supply chain said the parts probably came from a variety of sources, such as existing overseas stocks from airlines and repair facilities or resellers who trade in scrapped parts.A Boeing plant in Renton, Wash. Millions of dollars of parts described as being manufactured or trademarked by the U.S. plane maker were sold into Russia via third parties.Grant Hindsley for The New York TimesMost of the products were routed through countries like the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, China and the Maldives, according to the data. But a handful of shipments — including to Rossiya — were sent directly from the United States or Europe.The shipments also increased over the course of last year as Russia recruited global businesses to help it bypass the sanctions. The trend suggests that “networks for evading sanctions took time to establish during the immediate post-export-control scramble but are now in a position to help Russian airlines source some key parts,” said William George, the director of research at Import Genius.The Russian nationals taken into custody on Thursday began setting up their scheme last May to send aircraft parts from the United States to Russia in violation of export regulations, according to the criminal complaint.The men are accused of fielding requests for parts, including expensive brake systems for a Boeing 737, from at least three Russian airlines, including two that had been strictly barred from purchasing U.S.-made products through a so-called temporary denial order issued by the Commerce Department. F.B.I. agents raided a condo owned by the men’s company in the Trump Towers in Sunny Isles Beach, Fla., on Thursday, The Miami Herald reported.Lawyers for the men did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Despite the level of sanctions evasion, airplane shipments into Russia remain significantly lower than before the war. U.S. officials say Russian airlines have been forced to cannibalize planes, breaking them down for spare parts to keep others in operation, as well as turning to Iran for maintenance and parts.Russia’s imports of aircraft and aircraft parts fell from $3.45 billion annually before the invasion to only about $286 million afterward, according to The Observatory of Economic Complexity, a data visualization platform that explores global trade dynamics.According to Silverado Policy Accelerator, a Washington nonprofit, China has been the leading overall exporter of parts for aircraft, spacecraft and drones to Russia since the invasion, accounting for about half of all shipments, followed by India. The number of single-aisle planes in use in Russia fell about 16 percent from the summer of 2021 to the summer of 2022, after the invasion, according to Cirium, an aviation data provider. The number of larger twin-aisle planes, often used on international routes, was down about 40 percent.Aviation experts say it will become more challenging for Russian airlines to continue flying planes without access to Western suppliers and help from Boeing and Airbus. The manufacturers regularly consult with airlines to assess any damage and strictly control access to technical documentation used by mechanics.But for now, Russian airlines have been kept alive with the help of international shipments and the use of hundreds of foreign jets that were stranded there after the war began.Tens of thousands of flights are expected to crisscross Russia this month, according to schedules published by Cirium. More than 21,000 flights — over half of them operated by Russian airlines — are expected to carry passengers to and from countries in Central Asia, as well as Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, China and Thailand.Half a dozen export control lawyers and former government officials consulted by The New York Times said that many of the shipments in the Import Genius data likely violated sanctions, but that plane makers like Boeing or Airbus were not necessarily at fault. The aviation supply chain is complex and global, and the parts could have come from a variety of sources.“There is pretty clearly a violation,” said William Reinsch, a trade expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who oversaw export controls during the Clinton administration. “Less clear is the guilty party.”Aircraft parts originating in the European Union, including those marked as being manufactured or trademarked by Airbus, were also shipped into Russia last year, according to the data.Working on an Airbus A320 plane at a hangar in Haikou, China, in May. Airbus parts were also shipped into Russia last year.Zhang Liyun/Xinhua, via Getty ImagesJustin Dubon, a spokesman for Airbus, said that the company keeps track of genuine parts and documentation provided to its customers and conducts due diligence on all parties requesting spare parts. Restrictions in the United States and Europe mean that “there is no legal way that genuine aircraft parts, documentation and services can get to Russian carriers,” he said.U.S. restrictions technically allow companies to apply for a special license to continue sending products to Russian carriers for “safety of flight” reasons, but both Boeing and Airbus said that they had neither sought nor received such a license. In addition, Airbus said that E.U. laws prevent it from shipping such goods to Russia, regardless of U.S. licensing.Current and former U.S. officials say that some shipments into Russia are to be expected. Kevin Wolf, a partner at the law firm Akin Gump who oversaw export controls during the Obama administration, said the restrictions “can never block everything,” but that the rules were still significantly degrading Russia’s capabilities.He added that the scope of the new rules still exceed current methods of tracking and enforcement in other allied countries. Until the invasion of Ukraine, trade in aircraft parts was mostly unrestricted by the United States and other countries, except to Iran, Cuba, North Korea and Syria.“It’s improving,” Mr. Wolf said, “but it’s still way, way behind.”Compared with other countries that mostly limit their scrutiny to goods crossing their own borders, the United States is unparalleled in its attempt to police commerce around the world.In the past three years, the United States has imposed new technology restrictions for Russia, China and Iran that apply extraterritorially: Products made in the United States, or in foreign countries with the help of American components or technology, are subject to U.S. rules even when changing hands on the other side of the world.Both the United States and the European Union have been ramping up penalties for companies that violate sanctions, and dispatching officials to countries like Kazakhstan to try to persuade them to clamp down on shipments to Russia through their territory. The U.S. government has nine export control officers stationed in Istanbul, Beijing and other locations to trace shipments of sensitive products, and it is setting up three more offices.But providing parts can be a lucrative business. James Disalvatore, an associate director at Kharon, a data and analytics firm that has been monitoring Russia’s efforts to bypass sanctions, said the value of some aircraft parts imported by Russian airlines since the invasion had risen fourfold or more.“I don’t think there’s any secret what’s going on,” said Gary Stanley, a trade compliance expert who advises businesses in aerospace and other industries. “How long have we had Cuban sanctions? How long have we had North Korean sanctions? How long have we had Iranian sanctions? It never seems to put these folks out of business.” More

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    The ‘Peace Dividend’ Is Over in Europe. Now Come the Hard Tradeoffs.

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    Defending against an unpredictable Russia in years to come will mean bumping up against a strained social safety net and ambitious climate transition plans.In the 30 years since the Iron Curtain came crashing down, trillions of dollars that had been dedicated to Cold War armies and weapons systems were gradually diverted to health care, housing and schools.That era — when security took a back seat to trade and economic growth — abruptly ended with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.“The peace dividend is gone,” Kristalina Georgieva, the head of the International Monetary Fund, recently declared, referring to the mountains of cash that were freed up when military budgets shrank. “Defense expenditures have to go up.”The urgent need to combat a brutal and unpredictable Russia has forced European leaders to make excruciating budgetary decisions that will enormously affect peoples’ everyday lives. Do they spend more on howitzers or hospitals, tanks or teachers, rockets or roadways? And how to pay for it: raise taxes or borrow more? Or both?The sudden security demands, which will last well beyond an end to the war in Ukraine, come at a moment when colossal outlays are also needed to care for rapidly aging populations, as well as to avoid potentially disastrous climate change. The European Union’s ambitious goal to be carbon neutral by 2050 alone is estimated to cost between $175 billion and $250 billion each year for the next 27 years.“The spending pressures on Europe will be huge, and that’s not even taking into account the green transition,” said Kenneth Rogoff, an economics professor at Harvard. “The whole European social safety net is very vulnerable to these big needs.” After the Berlin Wall fell, social spending shot up. Denmark doubled the money it funneled to health care between 1994 and 2022, according to the latest figures compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, while Britain increased its spending by more than 90 percent. Over the same period, Poland more than doubled funding for culture and recreation programs. Germany ramped up investments in the economy. The Czech Republic increased its education budget.President Biden with NATO allies in Warsaw in February. Military budgets started to rise after Russia annexed Crimea. Doug Mills/The New York TimesMilitary spending by European members of North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Canada reached a low point in 2014 as the demand for battle tanks, fighter jets and submarines plummeted. After Russia annexed Crimea that year, budgets started to rise again, but most countries still fell well below NATO’s target of 2 percent of national output.“The end of the peace dividend is a big rupture,” said Daniel Daianu, chairman of the Fiscal Council in Romania and a former finance minister.Before war broke out in Ukraine, military spending by the European members of NATO was expected to reach nearly $1.8 trillion by 2026, a 14 percent increase over five years, according to research by McKinsey & Company. Now, spending is estimated to rise between 53 and 65 percent.That means hundreds of billions of dollars that otherwise could have been used to, say, invest in bridge and highway repairs, child care, cancer research, refugee resettlement or public orchestras is expected to be redirected to the military.Last week, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reported that military spending in Europe last year had its biggest annual rise in three decades. And the spendathon is just beginning.The demand for military spending will be on display Wednesday when the European Union’s trade commissioner, Thierry Breton, is expected to discuss his fact-finding tour to determine whether European nations and weapons manufacturers can produce one million rounds of 155-millimeter shells for Ukraine this year, and how production can be increased. Poland has pledged to spend 4 percent of its national output on defense. The German defense minister has asked for an additional $11 billion next year, a 20 percent increase in military spending. President Emmanuel Macron of France has promised to lift military spending by more than a third through 2030 and to “transform” France’s nuclear-armed military.Some analysts argue that at times cuts in military budgets were so deep that they compromised basic readiness. And surveys have shown that there is public support for increased military spending, pointedly illustrated by Finland and Sweden’s about-face in wanting to join NATO.Polish military units train Ukrainian soldiers on the German-made Leopard tanks at a military base, in Poland in February.Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York TimesBut in most of Europe, the painful budgetary trade-offs or tax increases that will be required have not yet trickled down to daily life. Much of the belt-tightening last year that squeezed households was the result of skyrocketing energy prices and stinging inflation.Going forward, the game board has changed. “France has entered into a war economy that I believe we will be in for a long time,” Mr. Macron said in a speech shortly after announcing his spending blueprint.But the crucial question of how to pay for the momentous shift in national priorities remains. In France, for instance, government spending as a percentage of the economy, at 1.4 trillion euros ($1.54 trillion), is the highest in Europe. Of that, nearly half was spent on the nation’s generous social safety net, which includes unemployment benefits and pensions. Debt has also spiraled in the wake of the pandemic. Yet Mr. Macron has vowed not to increase what is already one of the highest tax levels in Europe for fear of scaring off investors.Debates over competing priorities are playing out in other capitals across the region — even if the trade-offs are not explicitly mentioned.In Britain, on the same day in March that the government unveiled a budget that included a $6.25 billion bump in military spending, teachers, doctors and transport workers joined strikes over pay and working conditions. It was just one in a series of walkouts by public workers who complained that underfunding, double-digit inflation and the pandemic’s aftermath have crippled essential services like health care, transportation and education. The budget included a $4.1 billion increase for the National Health Service over the same two-year period.Romania, which has been running up its public debt over the years, has pledged to lift military spending this year by 0.5 percent of national output. And this month it agreed to buy an undisclosed number of F-35 fighter jets, which have a list price of $80 million a piece. While the increase will enable the country to hit NATO’s budget target, it will undercut efforts to meet the debt limits set by the European Union.Romania has pledged to lift military spending this year by 0.5 percent of national output.Andreea Campeanu for The New York TimesThe shift in government spending is perhaps most striking in Germany, where defense outlays plunged after the reunification of the former East and West German nations in 1990.“Defense was always the place to save, because it was not very popular,” said Hubertus Bardt, the managing director of the Institute of the German Economy.Germany, the largest and most powerful economy in Europe, has consistently devoted less money to the military as a percentage of gross domestic output than either France or Britain.It’s a “historic turning point,” the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said when he announced a special $112 billion defense fund last year. Yet that pot of money did not include any spending for ammunition. And when the fund is depleted, Germany will need to find an additional $38 billion to level up with its NATO partners.Mr. Rogoff, the Harvard economist, said that most Europeans have not yet absorbed how big the long-term effects of a fading peace dividend will be. This is a new reality, he said, “and governments are going to have to figure out how to rebalance things.”Melissa Eddy More

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    Russia Is Importing Western Weapons Technology, Bypassing Sanctions

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    Western technology goods are winding up in Russian missiles, raising questions about the efficacy of sanctions.Late last month, American and European Union officials traded information on millions of dollars’ worth of banned technology that was slipping through the cracks of their defenses and into Russian territory.Senior tax and trade officials noted a surge in chips and other electronic components being sold to Russia through Armenia, Kazakhstan and other countries, according to slides from the March 24 meeting obtained by The New York Times. And they shared information on the flow of eight particularly sensitive categories of chips and other electronic devices that they have deemed as critical to the development of weapons, including Russian cruise missiles that have struck Ukraine.As Ukraine tries to repel Russia from its territory, the United States and its allies have been fighting a parallel battle to keep the chips needed for weapons systems, drones and tanks out of Russian hands.But denying Russia access to chips has been a challenge, and the United States and Europe have not made a clear victory. While Russia’s ability to manufacture weaponry has been diminished because of Western sanctions adopted more than a year ago, the country is still gaining circuitous access to many electronic components.The result is devastating: As the United States and the European Union rally to furnish Ukrainians with weapons to keep fighting against Russia, their own technology is being used by Russia to fight back.American officials argue that the sweeping sanctions they have imposed in partnership with 38 other governments have severely damaged Russia’s military capacity, and raised the cost to Russia to procure the parts it needs.“My view is that we’ve been very effective in impeding Russia’s ability to sustain and reconstitute a military force,” said Alan Estevez, who oversees U.S. export controls at the Bureau of Industry and Security at the Commerce Department, in an interview in March.“We recognize that this is hard, hard work,” Mr. Estevez added. “They’re adapting. We’re adapting to their adaptations.”There is no doubt that the trade restrictions are making it significantly harder for Russia to obtain technology that can be used on the battlefield, much of which is designed by firms in the United States and allied countries.Direct sales of chips to Russia from the United States and its allies have plummeted to zero. U.S. officials say Russia has already blown through much of its supply of its most accurate weapons and has been forced to substitute lower-quality or counterfeit parts that make its weaponry less accurate.But trade data shows that other countries have stepped in to provide Russia with some of what it needs. After dropping off sharply immediately after the Ukrainian invasion, Russia’s chip imports crept back up, particularly from China. Imports between October and January were 50 percent or more of median prewar levels each month, according to tracking by Silverado Policy Accelerator, a think tank.Sarah V. Stewart, Silverado’s chief executive, said the export controls imposed on Russia had disrupted pre-existing supply chains, calling that “a really positive thing.” But she said Russia was “still continuing to get quite a substantial amount” of chips.“It’s really a supply chain network that is very, very large and very complex and not necessarily transparent,” Ms. Stewart said. “Chips are truly ubiquitous.”A Ukrainian serviceman holding an electronic unit of an unmanned aerial vehicle used by Russia against Ukraine, during a media briefing of the Security and Defense Forces of Ukraine in Kyiv last week.STR/NurPhoto, via Getty ImagesAs Russia has tried to get around restrictions, U.S. officials have steadily ratcheted up their rules, including adding sanctions on dozens of companies and organizations in Russia, Iran, China, Canada and elsewhere. The United States has also expanded its trade restrictions to include toasters, hair dryers and microwaves, all of which contain chips, and set up a “disruptive technology strike force” to investigate and prosecute illicit actors trying to acquire sensitive technology.But the illicit trade in chips is proving hard to police given the ubiquity of semiconductors. Companies shipped 1.15 trillion chips to customers globally in 2021, adding to a huge worldwide stockpile. China, which is not part of the sanctions regime, is pumping out increasingly sophisticated chips.The Semiconductor Industry Association, which represents major chip companies, said that it was engaging with the U.S. government and other parties to combat the illicit trade in semiconductors, but that controlling their flow was extremely difficult.“We have rigorous protocols to remove bad actors from our supply chains, but with about one trillion chips sold globally each year, it’s not as simple as flipping a switch,” the association said in a statement.So far, the Russian military appears to have been relying on a large stockpile of electronics and weaponry it accumulated before the invasion. But that supply may be drying up, making it more urgent for Russia to obtain new shipments.A report issued Tuesday by Conflict Armament Research, an independent group that examines Russian weaponry recovered from the battlefield, revealed the first known example of Russia’s making weapons with chips manufactured after the invasion began.Three identical chips, made by a U.S. company in an offshore factory, were found in Lancet drones recovered from several sites in Ukraine this past February and March, according to Damien Spleeters, who led the investigation for C.A.R.Mr. Spleeters said his group was not revealing the chip’s manufacturer while it worked with the company to trace how the product ended up in Russia.These chips were not necessarily an example of an export control violation, Mr. Spleeters said, since the United States did not issue restrictions on this specific type of chip until September. The chips were manufactured in August and may have been shipped out soon thereafter, he said.But he saw their presence as evidence that Russia’s big prewar stockpile of electronics was finally running out. “Now we are going to start seeing whether controls and sanctions will be effective,” Mr. Spleeters said.The parent company of the firm that designed the drone, the Kalashnikov Group, a major Russian weapons manufacturer, has publicly challenged the West’s technology restrictions.“It is impossible to isolate Russia from the entire global electronic component base,” Alan Lushnikov, the group’s president, said in a Russian-language interview last year, according to a translation in a report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank. “It’s a fantasy to think otherwise.”That quote included “some bluster,” Gregory Allen, one of the report’s authors, said at an event in December. But he added: “Russia is going to try and do whatever it takes to get around these export controls. Because for them, the stakes are incredibly, incredibly high.”As the documents from the March meeting show, U.S. and European officials have become increasingly concerned that Russia is obtaining American and European goods by rerouting them through Armenia, Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries.One document marked with the seal of the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security said that in 2022, Armenia imported 515 percent more chips and processors from the United States and 212 percent more from the European Union than in 2021. Armenia then exported 97 percent of those same products to Russia, the document said.In another document, the Bureau of Industry and Security identified eight categories of chips and components deemed critical to Russian weapons development, including one called a field programmable gate array, which had been found in one model of Russian cruise missile, the KH-101.The intelligence sharing between the United States and Europe is part of a nascent but intensifying effort to minimize the leakage of such items to Russia. While the United States has deeper experience with enforcing sanctions, the European Union lacks centralized intelligence, customs and law enforcement abilities.The United States and the European Union have both recently dispatched officials to countries that were shipping more to Russia, to try to cut down that trade. Mr. Estevez said a recent visit to Turkey had persuaded that government to halt transshipments to Russia through their free trade zone, as well the servicing of Russian and Belarusian airplanes in Turkish airports.Biden administration officials say shipments to Russia and Belarus of the electronic equipment they have targeted fell 41 percent between 2021 and 2022, as the United States and its allies expanded their restrictions globally.Matthew S. Axelrod, the assistant secretary for export enforcement at the Bureau of Industry and Security, said the picture was one of a “broad decrease.”“But still there are certain areas of the world that are being used to get these items to Russia,” he said. “That’s a problem that we are laser-focused on.”John Ismay More

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    Support Grows to Have Russia Pay for Ukraine’s Rebuilding

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    Although U.S. officials have cautioned against seizing Russia’s reserves in foreign banks, others say it’s “crazy” not to after Moscow’s war of aggression.When the World Bank released its latest damage assessment of war-torn Ukraine this week, it announced that the price of recovery and rebuilding had grown to $411 billion. What it didn’t say, though, was who would pay for it.To Ukraine, the answer seems obvious: Confiscate the roughly $300 billion in Russian Central Bank assets that Western banks have frozen since the invasion last year. As the war grinds on, the idea has gained supporters.The European Union has already declared its desire to use the Kremlin’s bankroll to pay for reconstruction in Ukraine. At the urging of a handful of Eastern European and Baltic nations, the bloc convened a working group last month to assess the possibility of grabbing that money as well as frozen assets owned by private individuals who have run afoul of European sanctions.“In principle, it is clear-cut: Russia must pay for the reconstruction of Ukraine,” said Sweden’s prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, who holds the presidency of the Council of the European Union.At the same time, he noted, turning that principle into practice is fraught. “This must be done in accordance with E.U. and international law, and there is currently no direct model for this,” Mr. Kristersson said.The working group, which has a two-year mandate, is scheduled to meet in Brussels next week.Other top officials, in the United States and elsewhere, have sounded more skeptical. After visiting Kyiv last month, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen reiterated her warnings of formidable legal obstacles. The Swiss government declared that confiscating private Russian assets from banks would violate Switzerland’s Constitution as well as international agreements.The legal debate is just one skein in the tangle of moral, political and economic concerns that the potential seizure of Russia’s reserves poses.Departing a Mass in Lviv, Ukraine. Some U.S. officials worry about side effects from seizing assets in order to rebuild the country. Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York TimesMs. Yellen and others have argued that seizing Russia’s accounts could undermine faith in the dollar, the most widely used currency for the world’s trade and transactions. Foreign nations might be more reluctant to keep money in U.S. banks or make investments, fearing that it could be seized. At the same time, experts worry that such a move could put American and European assets held in other countries at higher risk of expropriation in the future if there is an international dispute.There are also concerns that seizure would erode faith in the system of international laws and agreements that Western governments have championed most vocally.But Russia’s pummeling of Ukraine’s infrastructure, charges of war crimes against President Vladimir V. Putin, and the difficulty of squeezing Russia economically when demand for its energy and other exports remains high have helped the idea gain ground.Also, there is the uncomfortable realization that the cost of rebuilding Ukraine once the war is over will far outstrip the amount that even wealthy allies like the United States and Europe may be willing to give.The United States, the European Union, Britain and other allies have funneled billions of dollars into Ukraine’s war effort, as well as tanks, missiles, ammunition, drones and other military equipment. And this week the International Monetary Fund approved its biggest loan yet — $15.6 billion — just to keep Ukraine’s battered economy afloat.But public support for continued funding is not inexhaustible.“If it’s difficult to get funding now for maintaining the infrastructure or housing, why is it going to be easier to get funding later?” asked Tymofiy Mylovanov, the president of the Kyiv School of Economics and a former government minister.It’s hard enough for Ukraine to get money and equipment “while we are being killed,” Mr. Mylovanov said. “Once we’re not being killed, we’ll have difficulty getting anything.”Laurence Tribe, a university professor of constitutional law at Harvard, has argued that a 1977 law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, gives the U.S. president the authority to confiscate sovereign Russian assets and repurpose them for Ukraine.The U.S. authorities previously seized Iraqi and Iranian assets and redirected them to compensate victims of violence, settle lawsuits or provide financial assistance.Mr. Tribe concedes that calculations about the ripple effect on the dollar or invested assets will ultimately matter more to policymakers than legal ones. But he finds those broader political concerns unpersuasive.“It’s crazy to argue that it’s more destabilizing to have assets seized than to have wars of aggression,” Mr. Tribe said in an interview on Friday. “The survival of the global economy is far more threatened by the way Russia behaved” than by any financial retaliation.And, he added, taking billions of dollars is much more meaningful either as a deterrent or punishment than bringing war crime charges.A destroyed garage in Hostomel, a Kyiv suburb. Prominent Americans like Laurence Tribe and Lawrence Summers argue that seizing Russian assets would be the right thing to do.Emile Ducke for The New York TimesOther prominent voices in the United States have endorsed the notion. Lawrence H. Summers, a former Treasury secretary; Robert B. Zoellick, a former president of the World Bank and U.S. trade representative; and Philip D. Zelikow, a historian at University of Virginia and a former State Department counselor, made their case this week in an opinion piece in The Washington Post.“Transferring frozen Russian reserves would be morally right, strategically wise and politically expedient,” they wrote.A few countries in addition to Ukraine have taken steps to pry loose foreign assets owned by Russian individuals and entities and use the money for reconstruction. In December, the Canadian government began the process of seizing $26 million owned by the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich after passing a law easing the forfeiture of private Russian assets from individuals who are under sanctions.A federal judge in Manhattan gave the go-ahead last month to confiscate $5.4 million from another Russian businessman facing sanctions, Konstantin Malofeev. And Estonia is also seeking to pass legislation that would give the government there similar powers.But Mr. Tribe, Mr. Summers and others argue that the main focus should be not on seizing private assets, which would be legally much more complicated and time-consuming, but on the hundreds of billions owned by Russia’s central bank.Wherever the money comes from, the bill keeps growing. Over the past year, Ukraine’s economy has shrunk by a third. The war has pushed more than seven million people into poverty, the World Bank reported, and reversed 15 years of development progress. More

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    Why Russia Has Such a Strong Grip on Europe’s Nuclear Power

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    New energy sources to replace oil and natural gas have been easier to find than kicking the dependency on Rosatom, the state-owned nuclear superstore.The pinched cylinders of Russian-built nuclear power plants that dot Europe’s landscape are visible reminders of the crucial role that Russia still plays in the continent’s energy supply.Europe moved with startling speed to wean itself off Russian oil and natural gas in the wake of war in Ukraine. But breaking the longstanding dependency on Russia’s vast nuclear industry is a much more complicated undertaking.Russia, through its mammoth state-owned nuclear power company, Rosatom, dominates the global nuclear supply chain. It was Europe’s third-largest supplier of uranium in 2021, accounting for 20 percent of the total. With few ready alternatives, there has been scant support for sanctions against Rosatom — despite urging from the Ukrainian government in Kyiv.For countries with Russian-made reactors, reliance runs deep. In five European Union countries, every reactor — 18 in total — were built by Russia. In addition, two more are scheduled to start operating soon in Slovakia, and two are under construction in Hungary, cementing partnerships with Rosatom far into the future.For years, the operators of these nuclear power plants had little choice. Rosatom, through its subsidiary TVEL, was virtually the only producer of the fabricated fuel assemblies — the last step in the process of turning uranium into the nuclear fuel rods — that power the reactors.Even so, since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, some European countries have started to step away from Russia’s nuclear energy superstore.The Czech Republic’s energy company, CEZ, has signed contracts with Pennsylvania-based Westinghouse Electric Company and the French company Framatome to supply fuel assemblies for its plant in Temelin.Finland canceled a troubled project with Rosatom to build a nuclear reactor and hired Westinghouse to design, license and supply a new fuel type for its plant in Loviisa after its current contracts expire.“The purpose is to diversify the supply chain,” said Simon-Erik Ollus, an executive vice president at Fortum, a Finnish energy company.The Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant near St. Petersburg, Russia. Rosatom, a Russian company, dominates the global nuclear supply chain.Sezgin Pancar/Anadolu Agency via Getty ImagesBulgaria signed a new 10-year agreement with Westinghouse to provide fuel for its existing reactors. And last week, it moved ahead with plans for the American company to build new nuclear reactor units. Poland is about to construct its first nuclear power plant, which will feature three Westinghouse reactors.The State of the WarRussian Strikes: Moscow fired an array of weapons, including its newest hypersonic missiles, in its biggest aerial attack on Ukraine in weeks, knocking out power in multiple regions.Bakhmut: Even as Ukrainian and Russian leaders predicted that the fall of the city could open the way for a broader Russian offensive, the U.S. intelligence chief said that the Kremlin’s forces were too depleted to wage such a campaign.Nord Stream Pipelines: The sabotage in September of the pipelines has become one of the central mysteries of the war. A Times investigation offers new insight into who might have been behind it.Slovakia and even Hungary, Russia’s closest ally in the European Union, have also reached out to alternative fuel suppliers.“We see a lot of genuine movement,” said Tarik Choho, president of nuclear fuel unit at Westinghouse, adding that the Ukraine war accelerated Europe’s search for new suppliers. “Even Hungary wants to diversify.”William Freebairn, senior managing editor for nuclear energy at S&P Commodity Insights, said Russia’s march into Ukraine last year in some ways marked “a sea change.”“Within days of the invasion,” he said, “just about every country that operated a Russian reactor started looking for alternate supply.”In Ukraine, serious efforts to chip away at Russian nuclear dominance began in 2014 after President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia sent troops to occupy territory in Crimea and the eastern Donbas region. Ukraine, whose 15 Soviet-era reactors provided half the country’s electricity, signed a deal with Westinghouse to expand its fuel contract.It took roughly five years between the start of the design process and the final delivery of the first fuel assembly, according to the International Energy Agency.Ukraine “blazed a commercial trail,” Mr. Freebairn said. In June, Ukraine signed another contract with Westinghouse to eventually provide all its nuclear fuel. The company will also build nine power plants and establish an engineering center in the country.Technicians in a nuclear plant in Mochovce, Slovakia, last year. Slovakia is among the European countries seeking nuclear fuel suppliers other than Russia.Radovan Stoklasa/ReutersStill, a worldwide turn away from Russia’s nuclear industry would be a slog: The nuclear supply chain is exceptionally complex. Establishing a new one would be expensive and take years.At the same time, Rosatom has proved uniquely successful as both a business enterprise and a vehicle for Russian political influence. Much of its ascendancy is due to what experts have labeled a “one-stop nuclear shop” that can provide countries with an all-inclusive package: materials, training, support, maintenance, disposal of nuclear waste, decommissioning and, perhaps most important, financing on favorable terms.And with a life span of 20 to 40 years, deals to build nuclear reactors compel a long-term marriage.Russia’s tightest grip is on the market for nuclear fuel. It controls 38 percent of the world’s uranium conversion and 46 percent of the uranium enrichment capacity — essential steps in producing usable fuel.“That’s equal to all of OPEC put together in terms of market share and power,” said Paul Dabbar, a visiting fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, referring to the oil dominance of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.As with oil and natural gas, the cost of nuclear fuel supplies has risen over the past year, putting more than $1 billion from exports into Russia’s treasury, according to a report from the Royal United Services Institute, a security research organization in London.The American nuclear power industry gets up to 20 percent of its enriched uranium from Russia, the maximum allowed by a recent nonproliferation treaty, according to the International Energy Association. France imports 15 percent. Framatome, which is owned by state-backed nuclear power operator, Électricité de France, or EDF, signed a cooperation agreement with Rosatom in December 2021, two months before Russia’s invasion, that is still in effect. Framatome declined to comment.The control room of a nuclear power plant in Paks, Hungary, in 2019. Two Rosatom nuclear plants are under construction in Hungary.Tamas Soki/EPA, via ShutterstockAnd even with the slate of new fuel agreements in Europe with non-Russian sources, deliveries won’t begin for at least a year, and in some cases several years.Around a quarter of the European Union’s electricity supply comes from nuclear power. With pending climate disaster prompting a worldwide push to decrease the overall use of fossil fuels, nuclear energy’s role in the future fuel mix is expected to increase.Still, analysts argue that even without formal sanctions, Russia’s position as a nuclear supplier has been permanently compromised.At the height of the debate in Germany last year over whether to keep its two remaining nuclear power plants online because of the war, their reliance on uranium enriched by Russia for the fuel rods emerged as one of the arguments against extending their lives. The last two reactors are to be shut down next month.And when Poland’s Council of Ministers approved the agreement in November for Westinghouse to build the country’s first nuclear power plant, the resolution cited “the need for permanent independence from energy supplies and energy carriers from Russia.”Mr. Choho at Westinghouse was confident about the company’s ability to compete with Rosatom in Europe, estimating that it eventually could capture 50 to 75 percent of that nuclear market. Westinghouse has also signed an agreement with the Spanish energy company Enusa to cooperate on fabricating fuel for Russian-made reactors.A nuclear power plant in Wattenbacherau, Germany, last year. The country’s last two reactors are to be shut down next month.Laetitia Vancon for The New York TimesBut outside the European Union and United States, in countries where support for Russia’s government has held up, Rosatom’s one-stop shopping and financing remain enticing. Russian-built reactors can be found in China, India and Iran as well as Armenia and Belarus. Construction has begun on Turkey’s first nuclear power plant, and Rosatom has a memorandum of understanding with 13 countries, according to the International Energy Association.As a new report in the journal Nature Energy concluded, while the war “will undermine Rosatom’s position in Europe and damage its reputation as a reliable supplier,” its global standing “may remain strong.”Melissa Eddy More

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    China’s Economic Support for Russia Could Elicit More Sanctions

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    U.S. officials pledged to crack down on shipments to Russia that can be used for both civilian and military purposes, but that has proved hard to police.WASHINGTON — President Biden and his top officials vowed this week to introduce additional sanctions aimed at impeding Russia’s war efforts against Ukraine. But the administration’s focus is increasingly shifting to the role that China has played in supplying Russia with goods that have both civilian and military uses.As one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of products like electronics, drones and vehicle parts, China has proved to be a particularly crucial economic partner for Russia.Beijing has remained officially unaligned in the war. Yet China, along with countries like Turkey and some former Soviet republics, has stepped in to supply Russia with large volumes of products that either civilians or armed forces could use, including raw materials, smartphones, vehicles and computer chips, trade data shows.Administration officials are now expressing concern that China could further aid Russia’s incursion by providing Moscow with lethal weapons. While there is no clear evidence that China has given weapons and ammunition to Russia, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken warned in recent days that China may be preparing to do so.President Biden, speaking in Kyiv on Monday, said the United States and its partners would announce new measures targeting sanctions evasion this week. He did not specify whether those actions would be directed at Moscow or its trading partners.“Together we have made sure that Russia is paying the price for its abuses,” he said the next day in Warsaw.And in a speech on Tuesday at the Council on Foreign Relations, Wally Adeyemo, the deputy Treasury secretary, said the United States would be working “to identify and shut down the specific channels through which Russia attempts to equip and fund its military.”“Our counterevasion efforts will deny Russia access to the dual-use goods being used for the war and cut off these repurposed manufacturing facilities from the inputs needed to fill Russia’s production gaps,” he said.The comments came on the same day that Wang Yi, China’s top diplomat, visited Moscow.The actions that the United States has taken against Russia in partnership with more than 30 countries constitute the broadest set of sanctions and export controls ever imposed against a major economy. But this regime still has its limits.One year into the war, the Russian economy is stagnant, but not crippled. The country has lost direct access to coveted Western consumer brands and imports of the most advanced technology, like semiconductors. But individuals and companies around the world have stepped in to provide Russia with black market versions of these same products, or cheaper alternatives made in China or other countries.Russia is unable to produce precision missiles today because the country no longer has access to leading-edge semiconductors, a U.S. official said.Maxim Shipenkov/EPA, via ShutterstockIn particular, the United States and its allies appear to have had limited success in stopping the trade of so-called dual-use technologies that can be used in both military equipment and consumer goods.The United States included many types of dual-use goods in the export controls it issued against Russia last February, because the goods can be repurposed for military uses. Aircraft parts that civilian airlines can use, for example, may be repurposed by the Russian Air Force, while semiconductors in washing machines and electronics might be used for tanks or other weaponry.The Chinese Spy Balloon ShowdownThe discovery of a Chinese surveillance balloon floating over the United States has added to the rising tensions between the two superpowers.Tensions Rise: In the aftermath of the U.S. downing of a Chinese spy balloon on Feb. 4 and three unidentified flying objects a week later, the nations have traded accusations over their spying programs.U.S.-China Meeting: Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a confrontational meeting with his Chinese counterpart on Feb. 18 in Munich, resuming diplomatic contact between Washington and Beijing.A ‘Military-Civil Fusion’: The international fracas over China’s spy balloon program has thrown a light on Beijing’s efforts to recruit commercial businesses to help strengthen the Chinese military.Unidentified Objects: As more objects were shot down after the balloon incident, experts warned that there was an “endless” array of potential targets crowding America’s skies. Here’s a look at some of them.Top U.S. officials warned their Chinese counterparts against supporting Russia’s war effort after the invasion of Ukraine last year, saying there would be firm consequences. While China has been careful not to cross that line, it has provided support for Russia in other ways, including through active trade in certain goods..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.The United States has cracked down on some of the companies and organizations providing goods and services to Russia. In January, it imposed sanctions on a Chinese company that had provided satellite imagery to the Wagner mercenary group, which has played a large role in the battle for eastern Ukraine. In December, it added two Chinese research institutes to a list of entities that supply the Russian military, which will restrict their access to U.S. technology.But tracking by research firms shows that trade in goods that the Russian military effort can use has flourished. According to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, an online data platform, shipments from China to Russia of aluminum oxide, a metal that can be used in armored vehicles, personal protective equipment and ballistic shields, soared by more than 25 times from 2021 to 2022.Shipments of minerals and chemicals used in the production of missile casings, bullets, explosives and propellants have also increased, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity. And China shipped $23 million worth of drones and $33 million worth of certain aircraft and spacecraft parts to Russia last year, up from zero the prior year, according to the group’s data.Data from Silverado Policy Accelerator, a Washington nonprofit, shows that Russian imports of integrated circuits, or chips, which are crucial in rebuilding tanks, aircraft, communications devices and weaponry, plummeted immediately after the invasion but crept up over the past year.In December, Russia’s imports of chips had recovered to more than two-thirds of their value last February, just before the war began, according to Silverado. China and Hong Kong, in particular, together accounted for nearly 90 percent of global chip exports to Russia by value from March to December.Shipments from China to Russia of smart cards, light-emitting diodes, polysilicon, semiconductor manufacturing equipment and other goods have also risen, the firm said.Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said he had shared concerns with Wang Yi, China’s top diplomat, that Beijing was considering providing weapons and ammunition to aid Russia’s campaign in Ukraine.Pool photo by Stefani ReynoldsRelations between the United States and China have soured in recent weeks after the flight of a Chinese surveillance balloon across the United States early this month. But divisions over Russia are further straining geopolitical ties. A meeting between Mr. Blinken and Mr. Wang, his Chinese counterpart, on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on Saturday night was particularly tense.U.S. officials have been sharing information on China’s activities with allies and partners in their meetings in Munich, a person familiar with the matter said.On “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Mr. Blinken said he had shared concerns with Mr. Wang that China was considering providing weapons and ammunition to aid Russia’s campaign in Ukraine, and that such an action would have “serious consequences” for the U.S.-Chinese relationship.“To date, we have seen Chinese companies — and, of course, in China, there’s really no distinction between private companies and the state — we have seen them provide nonlethal support to Russia for use in Ukraine,” Mr. Blinken said.“The concern that we have now is, based on information we have, that they’re considering providing lethal support,” he added. “And we’ve made very clear to them that that would cause a serious problem for us and in our relationship.”U.S. officials have emphasized that China by itself is limited in its ability to supply Russia with all the goods it needs. China does not produce the most advanced types of semiconductors, for example, and restrictions imposed by the United States in October will prevent Beijing from buying some of the most advanced types of chips, and the equipment used to make them, from other parts of the world.Russia is unable to produce precision missiles today because the country no longer has access to leading-edge semiconductors made by the United States, Taiwan, South Korea and other allied sources, a senior administration official said on Monday.“While we are concerned about Russia’s deepening ties with them, Beijing cannot give the Kremlin what it does not have, because China does not produce the advanced semiconductors Russia needs,” Mr. Adeyemo said during his remarks. “And nearly 40 percent of the less advanced microchips Russia is receiving from China are defective.”But Ivan Kanapathy, a former China director for the National Security Council, said that most of what Russia needed for its weapons were less advanced chips, which are manufactured in plenty in China.“The U.S. government is very well aware that our export control system is designed in a way that really relies on a cooperative host government, which we don’t have in this case,” Mr. Kanapathy said.He added that it was “quite easy” for parties to circumvent export control through the use of front companies, or by altering the names and addresses of entities. “China is quite adept at that.” More

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    Russia Sidesteps Western Punishments, With Help From Friends

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    A surge in trade by Russia’s neighbors and allies hints at one reason its economy remains so resilient after sweeping sanctions.WASHINGTON — A strange thing happened with smartphones in Armenia last summer.Shipments from other parts of the world into the tiny former Soviet republic began to balloon to more than 10 times the value of phone imports in previous months. At the same time, Armenia recorded an explosion in its exports of smartphones to a beleaguered ally: Russia.The trend, which was repeated for washing machines, computer chips and other products in a handful of other Asian countries last year, provides evidence of some of the new lifelines that are keeping the Russian economy afloat. Recent data show surges in trade for some of Russia’s neighbors and allies, suggesting that countries like Turkey, China, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are stepping in to provide Russia with many of the products that Western countries have tried to cut off as punishment for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.Those sanctions — which include restrictions on Russia’s largest banks along with limits on the sale of technology that its military could use — are blocking access to a variety of products. Reports regularly filter out of Russia about consumers frustrated by high-priced or shoddy goods, ranging from milk and household appliances to computer software and medication, said Maria Snegovaya, a senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in an event at the think tank this month.Even so, Russian trade appears to have largely bounced back to where it was before the invasion of Ukraine last February. Analysts estimate that Russia’s imports may have already recovered to prewar levels, or will soon do so, depending on their models.In part, that could be because many nations have found Russia hard to quit. Recent research showed that fewer than 9 percent of companies based in the European Union and Group of 7 nations had divested one of their Russian subsidiaries. And maritime tracking firms have seen a surge in activity by shipping fleets that may be helping Russia to export its energy, apparently bypassing Western restrictions on those sales.While Western countries have not banned the shipment of consumer products like cellphones and washing machines to Russia, other sweeping penalties were expected to clamp down on its economy. They include a cap on the price that Russia can charge for its oil as well as restricted access to semiconductors and other critical technology.Companies like H&M halted operations in Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, but the economy has proved resilient.Maxim Shipenkov/EPA, via ShutterstockSome companies, including H&M, IBM, Volkswagen and Maersk, halted operations in Russia after the invasion, citing moral and logistical reasons. But the Russian economy has proved surprisingly resilient, raising questions about the efficacy of the West’s sanctions. Countries have had difficulty reducing their reliance on Russia for energy and other basic commodities, and the Russian central bank has managed to prop up the value of the ruble and keep financial markets stable.On Monday, the International Monetary Fund said it now expected the Russian economy to grow 0.3 percent this year, a sharp improvement from its previous estimate of a 2.3 percent contraction.The I.M.F. also said it expected Russian crude oil export volume to stay relatively strong under the current price cap, and Russian trade to continue being redirected to countries that had not imposed sanctions.Most container ships have stopped ferrying goods like phones, washing machines and car parts into the port of St. Petersburg. Instead, such products are being carried on trucks or trains from Belarus, China and Kazakhstan. Fesco, the Russian transport operator, has added new ships and new ports of call to a route with Turkey that transports Russian industrial goods and foreign appliances and electronics between Novorossiysk and Istanbul.Sergey Aleksashenko, former deputy minister of finance of the Russian Federation, said at an event this month that 2023 would be “a difficult year” for the Russian economy, but that there would be “no catastrophe, no collapse.”Some parts of the Russian economy are struggling, he said, pointing to car factories that shut down after being unable to secure parts from Germany, France, Japan and South Korea. But military expenditures and higher energy prices helped prop it up last year.“We may not say that Russian economy is in tatters, that it is destroyed, that Putin lacks funds to continue his war,” Mr. Aleksashenko said, referring to President Vladimir V. Putin. “No, it’s not true.”Russia stopped publishing trade data after its invasion of Ukraine. But analysts and economists can still draw conclusions about its trade patterns by adding up the commerce that other countries report with Russia.The International Monetary Fund said it expected Russian crude oil exports to stay relatively strong despite a Western price cap. Andrey Rudakov/BloombergMatthew Klein, an economics writer and a co-author of “Trade Wars Are Class Wars,” is one of the people drawing conclusions about this Russia-size hole in the global economy. According to his calculations, the value of global exports to Russia in November was just 15 percent below a monthly preinvasion average.Global exports to Russia most likely fully recovered in December, though many countries have not yet issued their trade data for the month, he said.“Most of that recovery has been driven overall by China and Turkey particularly,” Mr. Klein said.It’s unclear how much of this trade violates sanctions imposed by the United States and Europe, but the patterns are “suspicious,” he said. “It would be consistent with the idea that there are ways of trying to get around some of the sanctions.”Silverado Policy Accelerator, a Washington nonprofit, recently issued a similar analysis, estimating that the value of Russian imports from the rest of the world had exceeded prewar levels by September.One of the case studies in that report was the jump in Armenian smartphone sales. Andrew S. David, the senior director of research and analysis at Silverado, said the trends reflected how supply chains had shifted to continue providing Russia with goods.Samsung and Apple, previously major suppliers of Russian cellphones, pulled out of the Russian market after the invasion. Exports of popular Chinese phone brands, like Xiaomi, Realme and Honor, also initially dipped as companies struggled to understand and cope with new restrictions on sending technology or making international payments to Russia.But after an “adjustment period,” Chinese brands started to take off in Russia, Mr. David said. Overall Chinese exports to Russia reached a record high in December, helping to offset a steep drop in trade with Europe. Apple and Samsung phones also appeared to begin to find their way back to Russia, rerouted through friendly neighboring countries.“Armenia is certainly not the only one,” Mr. David said. “There’s a lot coming through central western Asia, Turkey and the former Soviet republics.”Shipments to Russia of other products, like passenger vehicles, have also rebounded. And China has increased exports of semiconductors to Russia, though Russia’s total chip imports remain below prewar levels.President Vladimir V. Putin at a military training facility in Russia. Military expenditures and higher energy prices helped prop up the Russian economy last year.Pool photo by Mikhail KlimentyevOne major open question is how effectively the Western price cap will hold down Russia’s oil revenue this year.The cap allows Russia to sell its oil globally using Western maritime insurance and financing as long as the price does not exceed $60 per barrel. That limit, which is essentially an exception to Group of 7 sanctions, is designed to keep oil flowing on global markets while limiting the Russian government’s revenue from it.Some analysts have suggested that Russia is finding ways around the effort by using ships that do not rely on Western insurance or financing.Ami Daniel, the chief executive of Windward, a maritime data company, said he had seen hundreds of instances in which people from countries like the United Arab Emirates, India, China, Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia bought vessels to try to set up what appeared to be a non-Western trading framework for Russia.“Basically, Russia has been gearing up toward being able to trade outside of the rule of law,” he said.Mr. Daniel said his firm had also seen a sharp uptick in shipping practices that appeared to be Russian efforts to contravene Western sanctions. They include transfers of Russian oil between ships far out at sea, in international waters that are not under the jurisdiction of any country’s navy, and attempts by ships to mask their activities by turning off satellite trackers that log their location or transmitting fake coordinates.Much of this activity had been taking place in the mid-Atlantic Ocean. But after media coverage of suspicious practices in this region, the hub moved south, off the coast of West Africa, Mr. Daniel said.“They’re exploding,” he said of deceptive shipping practices. “It’s happening at an industrial scale.”So far, the oil price cap appears to be accomplishing its goal of reducing the price that Russia can charge while keeping global supplies flowing. But it remains to be seen whether this shadow fleet of ships is big enough to allow Russia to buy and sell oil outside the cap, said Ben Cahill, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, during a January panel discussion.“If that fleet is big enough for Russia to really operate outside the reach” of the Group of 7 countries, the cap probably “won’t have the kind of leverage that policymakers wanted,” Mr. Cahill said. “I think we should know within a couple of months.”Alan Rappeport More

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    Russia’s War on Ukraine Worsens Global Starvation

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    Moscow blocks most shipments from Ukraine, one of the world’s largest wheat producers, and its attacks on the country’s energy grid also disrupt the flow of food.ISTANBUL — Hulking ships carrying Ukrainian wheat and other grains are backed up along the Bosporus here in Istanbul as they await inspections before moving on to ports around the world.The number of ships sailing through this narrow strait, which connects Black Sea ports to wider waters, plummeted when Russia invaded Ukraine 10 months ago and imposed a naval blockade. Under diplomatic pressure, Moscow has begun allowing some vessels to pass, but it continues to restrict most shipments from Ukraine, which together with Russia once exported a quarter of the world’s wheat.And at the few Ukrainian ports that are operational, Russia’s missile and drone attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid periodically cripple the grain terminals where wheat and corn are loaded onto ships.An enduring global food crisis has become one of the farthest-reaching consequences of Russia’s war, contributing to widespread starvation, poverty and premature deaths.The United States and allies are struggling to reduce the damage. American officials are organizing efforts to help Ukrainian farmers get food out of their country through rail and road networks that connect to Eastern Europe and on barges traveling up the Danube River.But as deep winter sets in and Russia presses assaults on Ukraine’s infrastructure, the crisis is worsening. Food shortages are already being exacerbated by a drought in the Horn of Africa and unusually harsh weather in other parts of the world.The United Nations World Food Program estimates that more than 345 million people are suffering from or at risk of acute food insecurity, more than double the number from 2019.“We’re dealing now with a massive food insecurity crisis,” Antony J. Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, said last month at a summit with African leaders in Washington. “It’s the product of a lot of things, as we all know,” he said, “including Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.”The food shortages and high prices are causing intense pain across Africa, Asia and the Americas. U.S. officials are especially worried about Afghanistan and Yemen, which have been ravaged by war. Egypt, Lebanon and other big food-importing nations are finding it difficult to pay their debts and other expenses because costs have surged. Even in wealthy countries like the United States and Britain, soaring inflation driven in part by the war’s disruptions has left poorer people without enough to eat.A line for food aid in Kabul. An enduring global food crisis has become one of the farthest-reaching consequences of Russia’s war.Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“By attacking Ukraine, the breadbasket of the world, Putin is attacking the world’s poor, spiking global hunger when people are already on the brink of famine,” said Samantha Power, the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID.The State of the WarAerial Attacks: A deadly New Year’s Eve assault is the latest strike in Russia’s three-month campaign on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, which analysts say is an effort to demoralize the Ukrainian population by plunging it into cold and darkness.A New Alliance: The United States is scrambling to stop Iran from producing drones, as officials believe the Middle Eastern nation is building a partnership with Russia.Hopes Dim for Peace Talks: Both Ukrainian and Russian officials say they are willing to discuss making peace, but their terms for sitting down at a negotiating table suggest otherwise.Clergymen or Spies?: To Ukraine’s security services, the Russian Orthodox Church poses a uniquely subversive threat — a trusted institution that is not only an incubator of pro-Russia sentiment but is also infiltrated by priests, monks and nuns who have aided Russia in the war.Ukrainians are likening the events to the Holodomor, when Joseph Stalin engineered a famine in Soviet-ruled Ukraine 90 years ago that killed millions.Mr. Blinken announced on Dec. 20 that the U.S. government would begin granting blanket exceptions to its economic sanctions programs worldwide to ensure that food aid and other assistance kept flowing. The action is intended to ensure that companies and organizations do not withhold assistance for fear of running afoul of U.S. sanctions.State Department officials said it was the most significant change to U.S. sanctions policy in years. The United Nations Security Council adopted a similar resolution on sanctions last month.But Russia’s intentional disruption of global food supplies poses an entirely different problem.Moscow has restricted its own exports, increasing costs elsewhere. Most important, it has stopped sales of fertilizer, needed by the world’s farmers. Before the war, Russia was the biggest exporter of fertilizer.Its hostilities in Ukraine have also had a major impact. From March to November, Ukraine exported an average of 3.5 million metric tons of grains and oilseeds per month, a steep drop from the five million to seven million metric tons per month it exported before the war began in February, according to data from the country’s Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food.That number would be even lower if not for an agreement forged in July by the United Nations, Turkey, Russia and Ukraine, called the Black Sea Grain Initiative, in which Russia agreed to allow exports from three Ukrainian seaports.Russia continues to block seven of the 13 ports used by Ukraine. (Ukraine has 18 ports, but five are in Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014.) Besides the three on the Black Sea, three on the Danube are operational.The initial deal was only for four months but was extended in November for another four months. When Russia threatened to leave it in October, global food prices surged five to six percent, said Isobel Coleman, a deputy administrator at USAID.“The effects of this war are hugely, hugely disruptive,” she said. “Putin is pushing millions of people into poverty.”While increases in the price of food this past year have been particularly sharp in the Middle East, North Africa and South America, no region has been immune.“You’re looking at price increases of everything from 60 percent in the U.S. to 1900 percent in Sudan,” said Sara Menker, the chief executive of Gro Intelligence, a platform for climate and agriculture data that tracks food prices.Before the war, food prices had already climbed to their highest levels in over a decade because of pandemic disruptions in the supply chain and pervasive drought.The United States, Brazil and Argentina, key grain producers for the world, have experienced three consecutive years of drought. The level of the Mississippi River fell so much that the barges that carry American grain to ports were temporarily grounded.The weakening of many foreign currencies against the U.S. dollar has also forced some countries to buy less food on the international market than in years past.Russia attacked the port of Kherson, on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, in November. Before the war, farmers shipped out 95 percent of the country’s wheat and grain exports through the Black Sea.Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York Times“There were a lot of structural issues, and then the war just made it that much worse,” Ms. Menker said.U.S. officials say the Russian military has deliberately targeted grain storage facilities in Ukraine, a potential war crime, and has destroyed wheat processing plants.Many farmers in Ukraine have gone to war or fled their land, and the infrastructure that processed and carried wheat and sunflower oil to foreign markets has broken down.At a farm 190 miles south of Kyiv, 40 of the 350 employees have enlisted in the army. And the farm is struggling with other shortages. Kees Huizinga, the Dutch co-owner, said Russia’s attacks on the energy grid have led to the shutdown of a plant that provides his farm and others with nitrogen fertilizer.Other fertilizer plants in Europe were forced to shut down or slow production last year as natural gas prices soared, a result of the war. Natural gas is critical for fertilizer production.“So this year’s harvest has already been reduced,” Mr. Huizinga said in November. “And if Russians continue like this, next year’s harvest might even be worse.”He added that transportation costs have risen sharply for farmers in Ukraine.Before the war, farmers shipped out 95 percent of the country’s wheat and grain exports through the Black Sea. Mr. Huizinga’s farm paid $23 to $24 per ton to transport its products to ports and onto ships. Now, the cost has more than doubled, he said. And an alternative route — by truck to Romania — costs $85 per ton.Mr. Huizinga said Russia’s compromise on Black Sea shipments has helped, but he suspects Moscow is hobbling operations by slowing inspections. Under the arrangement, each vessel leaving one of three Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea has to be inspected by joint teams of Ukrainian, Russian, Turkish and United Nations employees once the ship reaches Istanbul.The teams look for any unauthorized cargo or crew members, and vessels heading to Ukraine need to be empty of cargo, said Ismini Palla, a spokeswoman for the U.N. office overseeing the program.U.N. data shows that the rate of inspections has dropped in recent weeks. The parties agreed to deploy three teams each day, Ms. Palla said, adding that the United Nations has requested more.“We hope that this will change soon, so that the Ukrainian ports can operate again at higher capacity,” she said. “Ukrainian exports remain a vital element in combating global food insecurity.”Ms. Palla said the parties’ decision in November to extend the agreement contributed to a 2.8 percent drop in global wheat prices.Over the last six months, food prices have retreated from highs reached this spring, according to an index compiled by the United Nations. But they remain much higher than in previous years.An uncertainty for farmers this winter is the soaring price of fertilizer, one of their biggest costs.Farmers have passed on the higher cost by increasing the price of food products. And many farmers are using less fertilizer in their fields. That will result in lower crop yields in the coming seasons, pushing food prices higher.Subsistence farms, which produce nearly a third of the world’s food, are being hit even harder, Ms. Coleman said.Food rations were distributed in Sana, Yemen. The war in that country has left its people vulnerable to food insecurity.Yahya Arhab/EPA, via ShutterstockIn a communiqué issued at the close of their meeting in Bali, Indonesia, in November, leaders of the Group of 20 nations said they were deeply concerned by the challenges to global food security and pledged to support the international efforts to keep food supply chains functioning.“We need to strengthen trade cooperation, not weaken it,” Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the director general of the World Trade Organization, said at the summit.The U.S. government spends about $2 billion per year on global food security, and it started a program called Feed the Future after the last big food crisis, in 2010, that now encompasses 20 countries.Since the start of the Ukraine war, the United States has provided more than $11 billion to address the food crisis. That includes a $100 million program called AGRI-Ukraine, which has helped about 13,000 farmers in Ukraine — 27 percent of the total — gain access to financing, technology, transportation, seeds, fertilizer, bags and mobile storage units, Ms. Coleman said.The efforts could help rebuild the country while alleviating the global food crisis — one-fifth of Ukraine’s economy is in the agriculture sector, and a fifth of the country’s labor force is connected to it.“It’s hugely important for Ukraine’s economy,” she said, “and for Ukraine’s economic survival.”Edward Wong More