European plan to shield households from soaring energy costs

The European countries have been lured by United States to supply more and more lethal arms to Ukraine and forced to stop buying oil and gas from Russia. Reportedly at present citizens of these countries are facing a sharp rise in power bills driven by sky-rocketing gas prices.

According to a Reuters report, an effort is being made to understand what Britain and other European Union member states are doing to protect the consumers.

Britain

Britain has a price cap on the most widely used household energy contracts. A new cap applicable from October will be announced on August 26. The forecasting group Cornwall Insight estimates that average British annual bills for gas and electricity will jump to 3,582 pounds in October and 4,266 pounds in January. Earlier this year, the price cap was 1,277 pounds.

The government is facing growing pressure to provide more support to households struggling with energy bills. The major fiscal decisions will be made by the new prime minister. The Conservative Party leadership contest between Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and former finance minister Rishi Sunak runs until September 05, 2022.

Truss has said she would apply a temporary moratorium on environmental and social levies added to consumers' electricity bills.

Sunak has said more support would be needed to help households through the winter, and he would act as soon as it is confirmed how much bills would be increasing by. 

In May, when Sunak was finance minister, the government set out a 15 billion pound (US$18.17 billion) support package to help households. Every household will receive a 400 pound credit to their energy bills from October.

More than 8 million low-income households in receipt of state benefits are also being given a further one-off payment of 650 pounds. Pensioners and disabled people will also received additional help.

Bulgaria

Bulgaria in May approved a 2 billion levs ($1.1 billion) package aimed at shielding companies and low-income consumers from the surge in energy and food prices caused by the Ukraine conflict.

The government decided to offer a discount of 0.25 levs per litre of petrol, diesel and liquefied petroleum gas and methane from July until the end of the year and scrap excise duties on natural gas, electricity and methane.

Denmark

In June, Danish lawmakers agreed a cash handout to the elderly and other measures totaling 3.1 billion Danish crowns ($439 million) to cushion the impact of soaring inflation and high energy prices. The measures also included a cut to a levy on power prices. Danish lawmakers have previously agreed to offer subsidies worth 2 billion Danish crowns ($288 million) to some 419,000 of the households hard hit by rising energy bills.

European Commission

European Union (EU) countries are largely responsible for their national energy policies, and EU rules allow them to take emergency measures to protect consumers from higher costs.

The EU in July asked its member states to reduce gas demand voluntarily by 15% this winter with the possible introduction of mandatory cuts.

The bloc also aims at refilling storage to 80% of capacity by November 01 to provide a buffer for peak demand winter months.

France

France has committed to capping an increase on regulated electricity costs at 4%. To achieve this government has ordered utility EDF, which is 80% state owned, to sell cheaper nuclear power to rivals.

New measures announced include helping companies with the cost of higher gas and power bills - bring the total cost of the government package to around 26 billion euros ($27 billion) Finance Minister.

French energy regulator CRE said last month it was proposing a 3.89% increase in regulated electricity sales tariffs (TRVE). The government has the ability to oppose the regulator's proposed rate hike and set new tariffs at a lower level or reject them outright.

Germany

German workers and families will receive extra cash, cheaper petrol and cut-price public transport tickets to help them shoulder soaring power and heating costs. Workers who pay income tax will receive a one-off energy price allowance of 300 euros as a supplement to their salaries. In addition, families will receive a one-time bonus of 100 euros per child, which doubles for low-income families.

Over the next few years, up to 13 billion euros per year will be allocated to subsidize renovations to old buildings and installing more energy-efficient windows, doors and heaters.

However, German households will have to pay almost 500 euros more a year for gas after a levy was set to help utilities cover the cost of replacing Russian supplies.

The levy, introduced by Germany in a bid to help Uniper and other importers cope with soaring prices, will be imposed from October 2022 will remain in place until April 2024.

Greece

Greece has spent about 7 billion euros in power subsidies and other measures since September last year to help households, businesses and farmers pay their electricity and gas bills.

Subsidies, which will be incorporated into power bills, will come in at about 1.136 billion euros in August and absorb up to 90% of the rise in monthly power bills for households and 80% of the rise for small and medium-sized firms.

Greece has imposed a cap on payments to power producers to reflect their real production costs, effectively scrapping a surcharge on electricity bills, with proceeds earmarked to help it finance power subsidies.

Hungry

Hungary has capped retail fuel prices at 480 forints ($1.23) per litre since last November, well below current market prices, to shield households from surging fuel prices. The measure led to such an increase in demand, which subsequently forced the government to curb eligibility for the scheme.

The sharp rises in European gas and electricity prices have also forced Hungary's government to curtail a years-long cap on retail utility bills, setting the limit of capped prices at national average consumption levels, with market prices applying above that.

Hungary has also imposed an export ban on fuels to ensure domestic supply needs and recently loosened logging regulations to meet increased demand for solid fuels, such as firewood.

Italy

Italy approved in early August a new aid package worth around 17 billion euros to help shield firms and families from surging energy costs and rising consumer prices.

The scheme, one of the last major acts by outgoing Prime Minister Mario Draghi before a national election next month, comes on top of some 35 billion euros budgeted since January to soften the impact of sky-high electricity, gas and petrol costs.

The government also intends to extend a 200 euro bonus paid in July to low and middle-income Italians who did not previously receive it.

A cut in excise duties on fuel at the pump scheduled to expire on August 21 is set to be extended to September 20.

Italy is also promoting a cap on gas prices at a European level to help contain price spikes.

The Netherlands

The Netherlands has cut energy taxes for its 8 million households.

Norway

Norway has been subsidizing household electricity bills since December last year and currently covers 80% of the portion of power bills above a certain rate. This is planned to go up to 90% from September, with the scheme to remain in place until at least March 2023.

Poland

Poland has announced tax cuts on energy, petrol and basic food items, as well as cash handouts for households. It has also extended regulated gas prices for households and institutions like schools and hospitals until 2027. The government agreed in July on a one-off payment of 3,000 zlotys to households to help them cover the rising cost of coal. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has said the total cost of curbing energy prices in Poland will amount to around 50 billion zlotys.

Romania

Romania's coalition government has implemented a scheme capping gas and electricity bills for households and other users up to certain monthly consumption levels and compensating energy suppliers for the difference. The scheme is supposed to be in place until end March 2023.

Romanian Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca has estimated in February the support scheme will cost around 14.5 billion lei ($3.27 billion), but analysts now expect it to exceed 10 billion euros.

The leftist Social Democrats, parliament's biggest party and a part of the governing coalition, supports replacing the cap-and-subsidy scheme with regulated prices.

Spain

Spain has started to temporarily subsidize fossil fuel plants' power costs in a bid to bring down high prices in the short term while keeping a longer-term focus on building renewable capacity. The system is due to be in place until May 31, 2023. Spain also cut several taxes to reduce consumer bills.

Spain announced 16 billion euros in direct aid and soft loans to help companies and households weather sky-high energy prices.

Sweden

Sweden will compensate households worst hit by the surge in electricity prices, with the government setting aside 6 billion Swedish crowns ($605 million) for the measures.

Chinese ship allowed to dock in Sri Lanka port

Reportedly, Chinese research ship, The Yuan Wang 5 has been given permission to dock on the condition it would not carry out research while in Sri Lankan waters. The ship has been allowed to remain in the Chinese-run port until August 22. 

India had previously voiced concerns that the ship would be used to spy on its activities, said media reports.

Foreign security analysts quoted by Reuters describe the Yuan Wang 5 as one of China's latest generation space-tracking ships, used to monitor satellite, rocket and intercontinental ballistic missile launches.

Several Indian media reports described it as a dual-use spy ship. Shipping analytics websites call it a research and survey vessel.

One report by Indian news site NDTV said the government in Delhi was concerned about the possibility of the ship's tracking systems attempting to snoop on Indian installations while on its way to Sri Lanka.

Earlier in July, an Indian foreign ministry spokesman said the government was monitoring the ship's planned visit, adding that Delhi would protect its security and economic interests.

According to a Reuters report, India had lodged a verbal protest with the Sri Lankan government against the ship's visit.

Earlier this month, Sri Lanka's foreign ministry had asked China to defer the ship's port call, saying it needed to take further consultations.

China responded, saying it was completely unjustified for certain countries to cite so-called 'security concerns' to pressure Sri Lanka - though it did not name any specific country. Sri Lanka later announced that the vessel would be given permission to dock.

 

Oil prices take a dip on weak demand outlook

According to early morning reports, crude oil prices fell on Tuesday as bleak economic data from top crude buyer China renewed fears of a global recession. 

While Brent crude futures fell to US$94.37 a barrel by 0313 GMT, WTI crude futures dipped to US$88.97. Oil futures fell about 3% during the previous session.

China's central bank cut lending rates to revive demand as the economy slowed unexpectedly in July, with factory and retail activity squeezed by Beijing's zero-COVID policy and a property crisis.

"Commodities prices across the board were under pressure as China's July economic data painted a more downbeat growth picture than previously expected, which prompted renewed concerns on demand outlook," wrote Yeap Jun Rong, market strategist from IG Group in a note.

China's fuel product exports are expected to rebound in August to near a year high after Beijing issued more quotas, adding pressure to already-cooling refining margins.

Investors also watched talks to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. More oil could enter the market if Iran and the United States accept an offer from the European Union, which would remove sanctions on Iranian oil exports, analysts said.

Iran responded to the European Union's final draft text to save a 2015 nuclear deal on Monday, an EU official said, but provided no details on Iran's response to the text. The Iranian foreign minister called on the United States to show flexibility to resolve three remaining issues.

In the United States, total output in the major US shale oil basins will rise to 9.049 million bpd in September, the highest since March 2020, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its productivity report on Monday.

Market participants awaited industry data on US crude stockpiles due later on Tuesday. Oil and gasoline stockpiles likely fell last week, while distillate inventories rose, a preliminary Reuters poll showed on Monday.

The premium for front-month WTI futures over barrels loading in six months stood at US$3.46 a barrel on Tuesday, the lowest level in four months, suggesting easing tightness in prompt supplies.

 

Trump authorized Israeli sovereignty in West Bank

According to The Jerusalem Post, former US president Donald Trump authorized then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to annex parts of the West Bank.

In a three-page letter dated January 26, 2020, two days before Trump presented his Vision for Peace in the White House, he summarized some of its details. These included that Israel would be able to extend sovereignty to parts of the West Bank, as delineated in the map included in the plan if Netanyahu agreed to a Palestinian state in the remaining territory on that map.

Trump asked Netanyahu to adopt “the policies outlined in... the Vision [for peace] regarding those territories of the West Bank identified as becoming part of a future Palestinian state.”

In exchange for Israel implementing these policies, the US president continued, and formally adopted detailed territorial plans not inconsistent with the Conceptual Map. The letter did not delineate a timeline for sovereignty recognition.

Netanyahu’s response said that Israel would move forward with sovereignty plans in the coming days.

The letter calls into question the narrative set out in Breaking History: A White House Memoir, a new book by Trump's son-in-law and former senior adviser Jared Kushner.

In it, Kushner asserts that former US ambassador to Israel David Friedman went behind his and the president’s back and assured Bibi that he would get the White House to support annexation more immediately.

Friedman and Netanyahu viewed the matter differently, Netanyahu’s spokesman said, “The charge that Netanyahu surprised the president and his staff with an uncoordinated announcement... is utterly baseless.”

Trump's Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt said that during his time in the White House, he always understood from former Prime Minister Netanyahu that US recognition of the extension of Israel’s sovereignty over those areas intended to be part of Israel contemplated by the peace plan released by President Trump was necessary for Netanyahu to agree to our proposed peace plan.

David Friedman was part of most, perhaps all, of those discussions and I believe he understood that clearly as well. I was no longer working at the White House at the time the peace plan was released. 

A Trump administration source closely involved with the president's letter said, "It was a key part of Israel's acceptance of the Vision for Peace as the framework for negotiations with the Palestinians for America to accept sovereignty up front, as per the mapping process and the plan, and for all the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley to be included.

Trump said in his speech – which Kushner said he read and reviewed with the president before delivery, “The United States will recognize Israeli sovereignty over the territory that my vision provides to be part of the State of Israel.

Trump said Israel and the US would work together to convert the conceptual map into a more detailed and calibrated rendering so that recognition can be immediately achieved.

“We will also work to create a contiguous territory within the future Palestinian state for when the conditions for statehood are met, including the firm rejection of terrorism,” Trump said.

“You are recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over all the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, large and small alike,” he said. “Mr. President, because of this historic recognition, and because I believe your peace plan strikes the right balance where other plans have failed, I’ve agreed to negotiate peace with the Palestinians on the basis of your peace plan.

“Israel wants the Palestinians... to have a future of national dignity, prosperity, and hope. Your peace plan offers the Palestinians such a future. Your peace plan offers the Palestinians a pathway to a future state,” Netanyahu said.

“Israel wants the Palestinians... to have a future of national dignity, prosperity, and hope. Your peace plan offers the Palestinians such a future. Your peace plan offers the Palestinians a pathway to a future state.”

The prime minister also said, “We looks forward to working with you to achieve a peace that will protect Israel’s security, provide the Palestinians with dignity and their own national life, and improve Israel’s relations with the Arab world.”

Immediately after the speeches, Netanyahu said he would bring the extension of Israeli sovereignty over parts of the West Bank to a cabinet vote the following week. Then-ambassador to Israel David Friedman told the media that Israel could start work toward annexation the moment it completed its internal process.

In Friedman’s book, Sledgehammer, released earlier this year, the ambassador wrote that the Trump administration did not know that Netanyahu already had the Jordan Valley mapped out for annexation. Netanyahu’s spokesman said, the prime minister’s letter to Trump in advance of the White House event specified that he would move forward in a matter of days.

The Trump administration source involved with the letter said that the dispute was only whether sovereignty moves could be made within a few days or weeks. Kushner himself told journalists at the UN days after the plan was presented that the mapping teams will take a couple of months before annexation moves forward.

Kushner also repeatedly claimed in the book that he struggled to convince Bibi, a master negotiator, to agree to a compromise that would give tangible life improvements to the Palestinians."

In contrast, Netanyahu conceded that a Palestinian state would be established. In addition, Friedman said Netanyahu agreed not to allow Israeli construction in the areas earmarked for the Palestinians in the plan's map. 

Ukraine termed defaulter by S&P and Fitch

"Given the announced terms and conditions of the restructuring, and in line with our criteria, we view the transaction as distressed and tantamount to default," S&P said.

Global rating agencies Fitch and S&P lowered Ukraine's foreign currency ratings to selective default and restricted default as they consider the country's debt restructuring as distressed.

Earlier last week, Ukraine's overseas creditors backed the country's request for a two-year freeze on payments on almost US$20 billion in international bonds. The move will save Ukraine some US$6 billion on payments.

Fitch cut the country's long-term foreign currency rating to "RD" from "C," as it deems the deferral of debt payments as a completion of a distressed debt-exchange.

S&P also said the macroeconomic and fiscal stress stemming from Russia's invasion of Ukraine may weaken the Ukrainian government's ability to stay current on its local currency debt and lowered the Eastern European country's local currency rating to "CCC-plus/C" from "B-minus/B".

Battered by Russia's invasion, which started on February 24, Ukraine faces a 35% to 45% economic contraction in 2022 and a monthly fiscal shortfall of US$5 billion.

It may be recalled that in July Ukraine aimed to strike a deal up to US$20 billion program with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) before year-end to help shore up its war-torn economy, the country's central bank governor Kyrylo Shevchenko had told Reuters.

Shevchenko, speaking during his visit to London, also said he hoped to agree on a swap line with the Bank of England.

It was the first time Ukraine has put a number on the fresh financing it needs from the Washington-based lender. A US$20 billion program would be the second largest currently active loan from the IMF after Argentina.

The central bank chief said a new program should provide measures that will help stabilize the economy. That could ensure a return to pre-war conditions, such as a flexible exchange rate, no limits on the currency market, decreasing non-performing loans in the banking sector and a balanced fiscal policy.

The IMF's latest loan to Ukraine was a US$1.4 billion emergency financing support agreed in March - the equivalent of 50% of the country's quota in the fund.

Separately, Kyiv is now in talks with its international creditors over a freeze in debt payments to ease its liquidity crunch. Lately, Ukrainian energy firm Naftogaz became the country's first government entity to default since the start of the Russian invasion.

"I hope that Naftogaz, together with the ministry of finance of Ukraine, that they will find a solution," said Shevchenko.

Some relief on foreign exchange revenue and liquidity would also come from the deal agreed between Moscow and Kyiv to allow safe passage for grain shipments in and out of Ukrainian ports.

However, those revenues and shipments would only pick up in earnest next year, when under the central bank's "conservative" estimates exports could hit 5 million tons per month and generate approximately US$5 billion in 2023, Shevchenko said.

Speaking about the central bank's intervention in currency markets as well as its bond buying program, Shevchenko said both would continue for now, though the latter would cease as soon as the war ended.

He added that operating in times of war had seen a whole new host of vocabulary spring up, with expressions such as maturity of war - a term to describe the time frame of a debt instrument used in the context of the conflict.

 

  

US wages almost 400 military interventions

Since I have started writing blogs, one of my assertions has been that United States is the biggest warmonger as well initiator of regime change programs around the world. This agenda is aimed at serving producers of lethal arsenal in the United States as well foreign policy objectives.

The United States has waged nearly 400 military interventions since its founding in 1776, according to a new research published lately. According to the study by the Military Intervention Project, A New Dataset on US Military Interventions, 1776–2019, half of those conflicts and other uses of force occurred between 1950 and 2019. 

More than a quarter of them have taken place since the end of the Cold War. Out of the nearly 400 military interventions, 34% have been in Latin America and the Caribbean; 23% in East Asia and the Pacific region; 14% in West Asia and North Africa; and 13% in Europe and Central Asia.

The authors find that US interventions have increased and intensified in recent years. While the Cold War era (1946 – 1989) and the period between 1868 – 1917 were the most militaristically active for the United States, the post-9/11 era has already taken the third spot in all of US history and most of that military adventurism has been in West Asia. 

It says, “These interventions have only increased and intensified in recent years, with the US militarily intervening over 200 times after World War II and over 25% of all US military interventions occurring during the post-Cold War era.”

Until the end of the Cold War, US military hostility was generally proportional to that of its rivals. Since then, the US began to escalate its hostilities as its rivals deescalate it, marking the beginning of America’s more kinetic foreign policy.  

The study reads, “Some scholars have explained such increasing interventionist trends as part of the new norm of contingent sovereignty, which explicitly challenges the traditional principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states. Particularly regarding the US, one perspective is that the country is evolving past its Cold War doctrine.”

The study notes, “US military interventions to promote geopolitical interests cannot explain the dynamics of the post-Cold War era. If the US primarily intervenes when its security interests are threatened, we expect the US to intervene less in an era void of peer competitors where fewer vital interests are arguably at stake.”

The authors point out that other researchers have asserted the US uses force abroad without a clear organizing principle and thus its military missions have had disastrous long-term and unintended consequences.

In 2018, a co-author said, “Current patterns of US military engagement as kinetic diplomacy, diplomacy solely through armed force,” the research says, in the past years.

While US Ambassadors are operating in one-third of the world’s countries, US special operators are active in three-fourths. 

A challenging aspect of measuring military interventions is how to define an intervention, the research notes. The study highlights that the definition of US military intervention may fall under any of the following categories.

The movement of regular troops or forces of one country inside another one in the context of some political issue or dispute. To separate higher intensity interventions from minor skirmishes, this definition excludes paramilitaries, government-backed militias, and other security forces that are not part of the regular uniformed military of a state. 

Similarly, “Events must be purposeful, not accidental.” Inadvertent border crossings are not included in this definition and neither are unintentional confrontations between planes or naval ships. The definition excludes soldiers engaging in exercises in a foreign land, transporting forces across borders, or on foreign bases. Furthermore, the definition categorizes international military interventions by temporal guidelines so that interventions are continuous if repeated acts occur within 6 months of one another.

Instances in which the United States has used its Armed Forces abroad in situations of military conflict or potential conflict or for other than normal peacetime purposes...Covert operations, disaster relief, and routine alliance stationing and training exercises are not included here, nor are the Civil and Revolutionary Wars and the continual use of US military units in the exploration, settlement, and pacification of the western part of the United States.

The political use of military force involving ground troops of either the US Army or Marine Corps in an active attempt to influence the behavior of other nations

Use of armed force that involves the official deployment of at least 500 regular military personnel (ground, air, or naval) to attain immediate term political objectives through action against a foreign adversary

Routine military movements and operations without a defined target like military training exercises, the routine forward deployment of military troops, non-combatant evacuation operations, and disaster relief should be excluded

Militarized interstate disputes are united historical cases of conflict in which the threat, display, or use of military force short of war by one member state is explicitly directed towards the government, official representatives, official forces, property, or territory of another state

 This recent pattern of international relations conducted largely through armed force, it noted, has increasingly targeted West Asia and Africa. These regions have seen both large-scale U.S. wars, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, and low-profile combat in nations such as Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, and Tunisia.

The authors say “the U.S. has increased its military usage of force abroad since the end of the Cold War. Over this period the U.S. has preferred the direct usage of force over threats or displays of force, increasing its hostility levels while its target states have decreased theirs. Along the way, the regions of interest have changed as well. Up until World War II, the U.S. frequently intervened in Latin America and Europe,” but beginning in the 1950s, the U.S. shifted its focus to West Asia and the North Africa region.

The data comprises confirmed covert operations and low-profile interventions by Special Operations forces, however, it points out that US government secrecy and scrupulous sourcing standards of the public database it studied guarantees that the post-9/11 tally is an undercount.

The post-9/11 era appear to be the third most active for US interventions of relatively higher hostility levels. In this era, threats of force are absent, while the use of force has been overwhelmingly commonplace. Since 2000 alone, the US has engaged in at least 30 military interventions. 

Experts say that the Pentagon has likely used secretive authority to carry out combat beyond the scope of any authorization for the use of military force or permissible self-defense.

They point out that while secretive “127e” programs in Somalia and Yemen for instance overlap with well-known US military interventions, other uses of the authority, such as in Egypt and Lebanon, may not. The same goes for even lesser-known programs like “Section 1202”.  

US military conflicts have provided American arms manufacturers with ample opportunity to make a profit and prolong the country’s history of violence based on its founding. 

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Global military expenditure is estimated to have been US$1,917 billion in 2019, the highest level since 1988. 

With a military expenditure of US$732 billion, the US remained by far the largest spender in the world in 2019, accounting for 38% of global military spending. The US spent almost as much on its military in 2019 as the next 10 highest spenders combined.

Today, SIPRI puts the cost of the US military at more than US$800 billion annually, accounting for almost 40% of global military spending.

 

India selling US dollar for UAE dirham

Reportedly Indian companies are switching from the US dollar to Asian currencies to pay for Russian coal imports. Steelmakers and cement manufacturers in India have been using the UAE dirham, Hong Kong dollar, Chinese yuan, and euro to pay for Russian coal in recent weeks.

Last month, Russia became India’s third-largest coal supplier after the South Asian giant dumped the greenback to secure deals, with imports surging to a record 2.06 million tons.

In June, Indian buyers paid for at least 742,000 tons of Russian coal using currencies other than the US dollar, equaling 44 percent of the 1.7 million tons of Russian imports that month.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of India also recently approved payments for commodities in the Indian rupee, a move that could further boost bilateral trade with Russia.

Recent reports revealed that Moscow was calculating the value of oil exports to India in US dollars while requesting payment in dirhams, asking that payments be made to Russia’s Gazprombank via Mashreq Bank, its correspondent bank in Dubai.

India has increased purchases of Russian oil and coal since the start of the war in Ukraine, helping Moscow cushion the effect of western sanctions and allowing New Delhi to secure raw materials at a discount.

In early July, the Russian logistics company, RZD Logistics, announced the completion of the first transportation of goods via container trains from Russia to India through the eastern branch of the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC).

The INSTC, which links the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea via Iran, is a 7,200 kilometer-long, major international shipping route for Indo-Russian trade.

In the face of aggressive western sanctions, Russia has bolstered economic cooperation with several friendly nations. Iran and Turkey are currently working on implementing Russia’s Mir payment system into their economies.

Turkey also recently agreed to make partial payments for Russian gas in rubles, while European companies have reportedly been inquiring with Ankara about acting as a middle man to supply Russia with metals, as a way to overcome sanctions.