#BlackSeaGrainInitiative seems we've witnessed a beautiful game theory experiment: Ukraine (with UN and Turkey's backing) carried on moving the ships through Black Sea, eff-ly challenging Putin to prove he's ready to attack a commercial vessel when the whole world is watching 1/ the reaction didn't take long - late on Monday Putin comes out and says: wait, we are not exiting, we are just suspending our participation, demanding safety guarantees for RU ships 2/ bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

The Istanbul grain deal offers huge hopes to Ukraine's war-torn economy. In my latest research briefing i look at the likely economic impact for Ukraine, considering upside and downside scenarios. A short thread. 1/ Ukraine's grain exports stood at only 35% of the normal levels (three-year average) since Russia's invasion and blockade of its ports. Among the grains it managed to export since the invasion, the majority was corn, and very little wheat. 2/

NBU shocked the markets and pretty much everyone in Ukraine with a 15% rate hike yesterday, lifting it to 25%. The scale of the hike is subject of a heated debate, but here are the key triggers for the sharp hike: 🧵1/ This chart (from Aleksei Blinov, Alfa Bank) illustrates well the key problem (red -fiscal deficit, green - FX interventions): as fiscal deficit was widening, NBU became the main source of financing, monetising govt debt. To minimise pressure on UAH it sterilised via FX interv’s

My two cents on the latest escalation regarding #Ukraine #Russia: 1) Russia hasn’t achieved any of its demands and is escalating to use “real force” to prop the West and Ukraine into submission. 1/ But the problem is that Minsk II / “quasi-federalisation” are so unpopular among the Ukrainian public (a lot of which are armed men after the war in Donbas) that no Ukrainian President would have a free hand to agree to that, given that ukraine is a democracy. 2/

1/ Unsurprisingly, Zelensky does not accept Honcharuk’s resignation. Yet a very interesting meeting, in which Zelensky - unshaven, w/o a tie, and visibly exhausted - is seriously telling off Honcharuk on a long list of faults of his govt. fbwat.ch/1oY4eTx8IqCQQ0… 2/ In particular on Honcharuk’s relationship with the parliamentary committees, effectiveness of his government (highlighting MinEcon, Min of Culture and M. Of Veterans), question of salaries for ministers and senior management (to tell them to curb their appetites)..