Could your investment decision help the tragic situation in Ukraine, being invaded by Russia in the first war on European soil since WWII?
Of course companies have to follow governmentsâ sanctions, but some businesses go even further and sever all ties with Russia (e.g. BP, Apple, and more).
If you own shares in a company, are you sure your investment is not contributing to the survival of Putinâs regime? Would you like the companies you have invested in to do more?
Reaching out is simple, just Google â(company name) + investor relations contactâ and get in touch with the company directly.
This is an example of what I shared this morning
âGood morning,
I own 0000 XXX shares (please let me know if I need to provide proof of shareholding in order to get a response to my question below).
After the recent events in Ukraine, Iâd like to understand how XXX is reacting to Russiaâs invasion of a sovereign country. I understand that XXX is following the international communityâs guidance and taking action based on approved sanctions, but Iâd like XXX to go further and sever all ties with Russia as other companies (e.g. BP, Apple, and more) have already done.
Looking forward to hearing from youâ
Unless Iâm buying shares directly from a Russian company, I fail to see how me owning shares in such a company is actually putting money into it, or financing Putinâs regime.
If anything Russian companies are probably buying up their own shares cheaply, and thus if you sell your shares in these companies you could actually be making Russian oligarchs and Russian companies richer in the long run.
Itâs interesting how for a very long time presence of western companies in the country was seen as âgiving their people a taste of western civilizationâ and was generally considered to be a good thing, both in terms of revenue and as a promotion of the western way of life.
And now suddenly the best option for Russia is thought to be a complete disengagement.
I am not sure that this is the best strategy to win larger Russian population and over-through the regime.
The western view to Russia has been to drip feed, keep it attached to the West whilst letting it what its controllers wanted. (& look, Oligarchs where made and spread about)
Now that the controllers arent doing what the Western powers want, they have to see what they can do to act like theyre in control.
Did the West react to Georgia? to Crimea?
did it bollocksâŠ
What weâre seeing now is the line in a sand. This is not about changing the ârussian populationâ anymore than it is you taking up arms to fight.
You can continue to munch your greggs sausage roll safe in your daily life.
Looking back at history, weâre taught about the âhighlightsâ - are we currently in those days that arent mentioned?
28th June 2014 was Ferdâz killing with war announced on 28 July.
Ukraine is currently 11 days inâŠ
What we in the West are seeing; is by all accounts; is not what those in Russia are seeing⊠- complete disengagement may make people question their governance and force a change within (which is where I personally see where the solution is - removal of Putin by his own council ) - whether that is a long term solution or not is a separate question.
While I can see the benefits of stopping trade with Russia temporarily, international firms permanently pulling out could well be counterproductive as one would hope that the situation will improve over timeâŠ
When Gorbachov invited Coca Cola & McDonaldâs to open in the country it was part of opening up the west as part of âPerestroikaâ with the goal of restarting the USSR economy. Anything much since the mid 1990âs has been a simple capitalism, and the same is happening now. With a devaluing rouble, inability to guarantee safety for employees, difficult managing supply chains & external perceptions all provide an easy decision for many brands.
Going slightly off the subject, in Gorbachovâs memoirs he stated that it was not Perestroika that destroyed the USSR but Chernobyl. I think that it is worth watching the nuclear power plants in Ukraine as one of those could change the outcome significantlyâŠâŠ that said, by all accounts Tokyo should really have been been evacuated after the Daitchi NPPs went pop, and that didnât happen.
Iâve not read his memoirs but might get a copy I think. From the little I know I would agree - he tried to reform from inside the politburo and was making some progress but he should have in charge from 1982 instead of staling through the old guard. It feels like he was too late and Yeltsin capture the ground of young reformer.
There was a quote hundreds of years ago about trading in tough times. Buy when you hear guns and sell on the sound of trumpets.
What we buy and sell will make little or no difference to Ukraine sadly.
My zebras shares are suspended because they sold steel to Russia that might have been used to build tanks. They also sold steel to Ukraine.
The last few weeks have seen banks climb the fall back. The same with oil and mining stocks. Then alternative energy companies have flown before falling back somewhat.
Tokyo is 300km from Fukushima and has 36 million people living in the area (about 30% the population of JP). Radiation levels in Tokyo were safe after the disaster. Had the disaster been worse then maybe it should have been considered but preemptively trying to evacuate that many people seems like it may not have been such a good idea.
That being said the govt made a ton of stupid decisions before and after the quake including related to evacuation of the area surrounding the plant.
There was an awful lot of highly radioactive âblack slimeâ found around Tokyo, later found to be a novel type of Cyanobacteria if I remember correctly. It was documented on Fukushima Diary and seemed to be concentrating radionuclides. I canât remember if they carried out gamma spectroscopy of it now but do remember that decay levels in mSieverts were way above safe levels. Of course what is collected by citizen scientists is often at odds with the official line and that is often required to keep populations in place and doing what they are supposed to be doing.
Yes, lots of mistakes and now having lived through the Covid response by government I understand that what is in the public benefit is not always as simple as looking after the immediate health needs of individuals. For the greater good and all that!
Iâm not suggesting they have. But logic isnât necessarily something to be attributed to the invasion. They had no reason to invaded, they lied to their own citizens around why and who was there, theyâve been raping, kidnapping and murdering civilians, theyâve been digging up the ground of the most radioactive site on the planet and sitting in it.
At this point using chemical weapons would be just another day for the Russian army. And itâs not the first time theyâve used chemical weapons on foreign soil. They did in the UK, and no one cared, so whatâs stopping them now?
I wonder IF NATO have to get involved IF there are internal conversations with the newer Eastern European members to provide the boots on the ground for peace keeping while the western members provide logistics and air support.
Would also be interesting to see what messaging is being given by NATO give Finland & Sweden. Join now or wait until after this is over? Join now and deploy troops tomorrow?
Purely from a geopolitical angle this is fascinating.
Putin reminding the west to keep out of the conflict while moving missiles towards Finland are rumoured to be happening.
Finland and Sweden are considering asking for Nato membership.