The Reality Of Ukraine's Situation Sets In
There's now a growing recognition among the Western foreign policy establishment, that the Ukraine War is not going well for them. That was most recently exemplified by the article in Foreign Affairs linked in the post below.
Stephen Biddle weighs in with an article at Foreign Affairs. He argues (correctly) that Ukraine cannot defeat the Russian defense in depth system and that the USA has nothing to give them that will change that, including ATACMs, F-16s, and Abrams. https://t.co/TcE0DpoVkZ
— Big Serge ☦️🇺🇸🇷🇺 (@witte_sergei) January 29, 2024
News reports that Ukrainian President Zelensky has been trying to oust his top general offer further confirmation that the Ukrainians are in dire straits. That has led to increasing recklessness among Ukraine War hawks in the West.
Calls To Confiscate Russia's Dollar Assets
Bill Browder, the descendant of communists who ironically led investment firm that sought to profit from the fall of communism in Russia, is one of the prominent Ukraine War hawks calling for confiscating Russia's dollar assets now.
EU agrees to set aside profits from frozen Russian assets. Why not confiscate it all? https://t.co/qSNOKfb34b
— Bill Browder (@Billbrowder) January 29, 2024
So is the Prime Minister of Estonia.
We need to press ahead with using #Russia's frozen assets for #Ukraine.
— Kaja Kallas (@kajakallas) January 30, 2024
Glad my calls are being met with steps forward not only within the EU but also among the G7, including the U.S. Congress and the UK.
Prominent legal and economic scholars have endorsed the idea. 1/
These people don't apparently don't consider second-order effects at all.
Kaja, why would any nonwestern country hold dollar assets if “we” do this? Think it through. If a coven of Western girlbosses can decide to rob them at will, why risk it?
— David Pinsen (@dpinsen) January 30, 2024
Calls To Prepare For Direct War With Russia
We've also seen increasing calls in Western countries to prepare for direct war with Russia, as Armchair Warlord notes in the thread below.
Thus far we've seen fearmongering from NATO itself, as well as national authorities at the highest levels of the British, German, Swedish, Norwegian, and Dutch governments.
— Armchair Warlord (@ArmchairW) January 31, 2024
This suggests to me - strongly - that extremely bleak assessments of Ukrainian prospects have gone around. pic.twitter.com/u046ugQ17C
As an explainer, Syria is still technically in a state of civil war right now because foreign countries - Turkey and the United States - sent in troops to protect defeated proxy forces after the Syrian government won the war in 2017 with Russian and Iranian assistance. pic.twitter.com/DMLaxt8WMu
— Armchair Warlord (@ArmchairW) January 31, 2024
It should be noted this is occurring in the context of continued collapses in troop numbers and failures to modernize across the West.
— Armchair Warlord (@ArmchairW) January 31, 2024
Paradoxically, Western leaders don't seem to think the Russians are actually a threat at all - perhaps explaining why they think this will work. pic.twitter.com/2LHqxuUlDF
Hopefully, someone in Congress will demand debate on plans to confiscate Russia's assets and to mobilize for war against it, so the hawks can be forced to justify their reckless ideas.
Let's wrap this up on a positive note, with a brief trading update.
Another Profitable Exit
As we mentioned earlier this week, we had our first trade exit of the week Monday: a 128% gain on an earnings trade on SoFi Technologies (SOFI -0.22%↓). Our second trade exit of the week on Tuesday was a bit less exciting: a 27% gain on bet against Polaris (PII 0.00%↑), but still profitable at least.
And Three More Trades Teed Up For Today
We've got three more earnings trades teed up for today, so keep an eye on your inbox if you've subscribed to our trading Substack/occasional email list. If you haven't subscribed yet and would like to, you can do so below.
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