Notes

Farmers warn Ukraine war will hit UK food prices
Ms Batters said the shortage of crops would also affect meat production as farmers need it to feed their livestock. "The real danger is that farmers contract, they decide not to invest, they hold back from planting, and we produce less food," she said. The manufacturing trade body Make UK said about 3,800 firms exported goods to Russia while 1,200 brought in materials, despite only accounting for 0.8% of total UK goods exports and 2.1% of imports. “The recent shortages of components, such as microchips, could continue and expand into other areas as sanctions and export restrictions limit supply that feed into the wider supply chain,” Thornton added.


These actions are likely to be felt by individual firms and investors, and potentially some sectors, but their wider impact will not be large relative to, for example, those relating to energy supply. While much commentary is focused on Russia’s energy there are several other commodities whose supply could be substantially affected by the Russia–Ukraine war, from wheat to palladium. Instead it has strengthened political consensus that domestic renewables offer the cheapest and most secure form of energy. The government is likely to face further pressure on its tentative support for onshore wind and solar. Energy efficiency – long a neglected policy area – is also back in vogue, particularly in the Treasury. There is a new target and a new taskforce, though not yet a credible plan for insulating homes.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine demands that the UK rewrite its foreign policy
If the US abandons the military alliance, it will fall to European countries to ensure a Ukrainian victory, Mr OBrien says. A prominent war expert says the US is on the verge of lessening its support for, or even withdrawing from, NATO - with potentially catastrophic consequences for Europe. The official added that budget talks are "ongoing" and have "always been based on finding a compromise" acceptable to all member states. "This is a factual paper which does not reflect the status of the ongoing negotiations. https://squareblogs.net/racingden14/the-mystery-surrounding-jenna-lees-departure-from-fox-news does not outline any specific plan relating to the [long-term EU budget] and Ukraine Facility, nor does it outline any plan relating to Hungary," it said. Moscow says it cannot accept that Ukraine - a former Soviet republic with deep social and cultural ties with Russia - could one day join the Western defence alliance Nato and has demanded that this be ruled out. When asked about these comments, Mr Wallace said Mr Lavrov was "a master at these types of engagements and making those type of comments", but that there had been no deafness or blindness in his talks with Mr Shoigu.


US officials have also pointed to an increase in Russia's social media "disinformation". The intelligence official described the build-up as a "slow drip" and a "slow ratcheting up of pressure". Gemma Tetlow, chief economist at IfG, says that there are potential opportunities for UK producers in markets like barley, wheat and gas. IfG's Mr Bartrum says that this uncertainty is likely to slow recovery from the pandemic. The EU imports more than a third of its nickel from Russia, 28% of fertilisers and 27% of its mineral fuels.

Russia-Ukraine War
Unnamed Indian government sources have suggested India wants to distance itself from Russia, according to Reuters news agency. Mr Szijarto will be in the western Ukrainian city of Uzhhorod with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba and presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak. "The nightmare scenario would be that the states close to Russia double down on aid to Ukraine while those farther west decide to force a deal on Putin's terms. Then Europe itself could fracture," he says. He says Europe is rich enough to do so if it has the political will, pointing to a recent report from the Estonian Ministry of Defence suggesting that committing 0.25% of GDP annually towards Ukraine would provide "more than sufficient resources".


Germany has said it might need to use coal, the most polluting fossil fuel, for longer than expected, in order to free itself from gas. The conflict could push up British energy bills to £3,000 in October 2022, potentially a £600 increase from previously expected levels, according to ECIU. The UK gets just 5-6% of its gas imports from Russia, according to analysis of government data by think tank ECIU, so supplies are not likely to be so directly affected. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, British Petroleum (BP) ditched its 19.75% shareholding in Russian oil giant Rosneft. Several other fossil fuel companies including TotalEnergies, Shell, Equinor, ExxonMobil are also ceasing ventures with Russian majors. With a grave humanitarian crisis unfolding in Ukraine, some fear the war will distract from climate action.


"We live in an unstable world. If rich counties fail to support vulnerable countries in tackling climate impacts and in their clean energy transition, it will only fuel a spiral of instability." However, as indicated above, if financial sanctions are extended such that they disrupt energy trade, this could lead to more profound economic impacts for the UK and other European countries. Including Gazprombank and Sberbank, another majority state-owned bank, in the SWIFT ban could further disrupt the energy trade. Many of the sanctions imposed on Russia’s financial system so far exclude transactions related to energy and agriculture. If sanctions were to go further, for example by including Gazprombank (a key bank for Russian energy conglomerates) in the SWIFT ban, European countries may have difficulty paying Russian firms for gas, which could result in a reduction in supply.


In a sign the worst of the disruption caused by the pandemic could have peaked, companies said the number of delivery delays fell last month to the lowest since November 2020. The OECD said the UK was expected to go from the second-fastest-growing economy in the G7 group of industrial nations after Canada this year to the slowest-growing in 2023. Those standing against Mr Putin in the upcoming election, including anti-war candidate Boris Nadezhdin, have until Wednesday to gather the required number of supporters' signatures to back their campaigns. As expected, Vladimir Putin has been officially registered as a candidate for the Russian presidential election this March. However, Mr Orban's political director said this morning that Hungary was open to using the EU budget to allow further aid for Ukraine.


While the official said it was hard to say these were all strategically related, it showed that there was an issue on Eastern Europe's eastern flank. But the official said Russia could also initiate actions against Nato members such as cyber and hybrid warfare, and even physical attacks. "But the extent to which that is possible is impacted by uncertainty because it requires significant long-term investment and that won't be worth doing if this is purely a temporary blip," she says. But despite limited overall trade, some parts of the UK economy are quite reliant on Russia.

The revival of NATO’s purpose and a unified western response have been a necessary if painful reminder of where UK interests truly lie. Russia's invasion of Ukraine means significant uncertainty for the UK economy, the chancellor has warned. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has profoundly changed the calculus in deciding where to invest and where to cut. The impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on our forecast for the UK economy comes primarily via the impact of higher energy prices on inflation, real incomes, consumption and imports.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has profoundly changed the calculus in deciding where to invest and where to cut. That means extremely difficult choices for a Treasury gearing up for retrenchment and conscious that protecting military budgets means cuts would fall even more heavily on public services, themselves in desperate need of more investment. As prime minister Boris Johnson promised to increase defence spending from an existing 2% to 2.5% of GDP; his successor Liz Truss went further by committing to 3%. This shift in approach to resourcing Russia and Ukraine is noticeable, and the UK can consider its response to the war so far a diplomatic success.

Ukraine is known as the "breadbasket of Europe," responsible for a large proportion of the world's wheat. And while commodity prices tend to be only a small proportion of the price of final food products, UK consumers would be likely to see higher prices on supermarket shelves – this could manifest later this year at a time of already high inflation. As expected, Vladimir Putin has been officially registered as a candidate for the Russian presidential election this March. The official added that budget talks are "ongoing" and have "always been based on finding a compromise" acceptable to all member states. A little earlier, we told you about a report in the Financial Times that the EU was proposing to sabotage Hungary's economy if Budapest blocks further aid for Ukraine this week.
It killed at least 41 civilians, including a 15-year-old boy, wounded hundreds, and caused significant damage to civilian infrastructure, including a maternity hospital. Charles Michel, the president of the EU Council, added that Nato was “clearly embarrassed” by its inability to intervene in the conflict to help Ukraine. In the documentary, Ms Truss also admitted that the UK had not taken strong enough economic measures prior to the invasion to deter Putin.

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