Interview
Block busters: how Russia flouts sanctions
- Ukraine intends to deploy newly acquired F-16 fighters in southern Russian territories, while Western sanctions may expand to include entire financial institutions in Turkey or Kazakhstan if they transact with American blacklisted banks.
- Europe plans to potentially ban ball bearing exports not only to Russia but also to Kazakhstan and Turkey to close sanction loopholes, aiming to prevent third countries from making trade systems "leaky."
- The EU has offered Armenia a €270 million financial package to encourage crackdowns on trade to Russia and facilitate closer integration toward EU membership.
- Sanctions are projected to be insufficient to replace traditional military support, with the global economy facing further fragmentation as intermediary nations like Georgia, Turkey, and Central Asia experience massive export growth, particularly in heavily restricted product groups.
- Central Asia is described as being in its most economically promising period in 20 years due to intermediated trade, with Georgia seeking additional business from Europe, while Kazakhstan's tech industry of roughly 50 firms in 2021 may boost exports through repackaging.
- Russia's economy is growing at approximately 4% annually, allowing it to replenish armaments without appearing deprived of goods despite sanctions.
- The Sudanese civil war, originating in April as a conflict between the SAF and RSF, has metastasized into multiple simultaneous conflicts with the RSF controlling most of Khartoum, Darfur, and the connecting regions under command of Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo.
- The conflict in Sudan is estimated to have killed 150,000 people, potentially a low figure, with the healthcare system nearly collapsed, villages burned, and widespread impunity for rape and looting by both SAF and associated militias.
- One in seven internal refugees globally is Sudanese, with famine declared in the al-Fashta camp, though the situation is far more widespread; if fighting continues until early next year, hunger-related deaths could reach 10 million.
- Hunger-related mortality is projected at six million by 2027 assuming a better harvest, or potentially two million by the end of September if conditions persist, while conflict resolution prospects appear worse than they were two months ago.
- Sudan faces a risk of being "cleaved in two" with parallel states emerging under RSF control, including their own bureaucracies and civilian governors, resembling a "Libya scenario" if the damage becomes irreparable.
- Proxy involvement is noted with powers like the UAE allegedly arming the RSF, while the SAF is surrounded by Islamist militias and civilian defense units, and the RSF is supported by foreign mercenaries and Arab tribal militias.
- Turkey faces a severe shortage in dog shelter capacity with only 105,000 spots available for an estimated four million strays, though modern shelters may cope in the short term.
- A new law passed on July 30th requires municipalities to round up street dogs and keep them in shelters, with a five-year deadline (until 2028) to build sufficient capacity, a measure the opposition CHP and Kurdish parties refuse to comply with.
- The Turkish law permits the culling of aggressive or terminally sick dogs, raising fears of mass killings and disease-ridden shelters, with reports of dogs being buried or poisoned, and opposition parties having applied to the constitutional court since August 15th to overturn the legislation.