Russia & CIS Military Newswire

July 24, 2008 Thursday 5:57 PM MSK

Russian Air Force Northern Fleet conducts tests of board equipment

LENGTH: 106 words

DATELINE: MOSCOW July 24

The flights of the anti-submarine airplanes TU-142MK and Ilyushin Il-38 of the Northern Fleet included tests of new radio-electronic equipment and weapon control systems, Assistant Navy Commander-in-Chief Igor Dygalo said.

"At some stages in the flights, the planes of the Northern Fleet's air force were accompanied by NATO planes," he said.

All flights of the Northern Fleet aviation in the distant sea area are conducted in strict compliance with the international agreements and international law, he said. The flights of the long-range naval aviation an the Arctic air space have become normal practice and meet state interests, he said.

lol, when Putin can make your US stock price drop 37% in 1 day I think thats an appropriate title

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its a serious thing that they are manipulating the steel market. It actually hurts the US consumer far more than the Russian state. Comrade Putin simply said something that Bush should have been the one to say.

Im sorry but if Yeltsin said the same thing people would have laughed, when Putin speaks people are not only afraid to hear his wrath by pretending to be sick but have their stock OVERSEAS drop is impressive. The whole Russian steel industry fell today with his threats, and rightly so. Price gauging wont fly anymore, at least in this industry, Russia needs to expand and people shouldnt pay huge overhead when the demand is that big. BRAVO PUTIN

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Excuse me, but can you explain me what is going on on steel market and how does it effect USA's economy?

Steel companies in Russia were selling steel at home at 2x the price of their exports, Putin held a meeting in which he said the anti-trust committee should investigate the ordeal. His wrath was directed at Mechel which is one of the companies gauging the prices, the owner of Mechel never actually bothered to show up to the meeting, fearing the consequences. After his speech the company stock lost a 3rd of its value, most other companies also saw heavy drops.

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Mr. Putins words just caused a loss of 15 bn Dollars for Mechel, SeverStal, NLMK and Norilsk Nickel.

`When Putin wants to meet you, you'd better do it.''

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a50WAQ_IFuF4&refer=home

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So basically Putin is still the boss of Russia huh?His determination
is very impressive,nobody can fack with him.

Quote: Russian companies must meet domestic demand, while maintaining Russia's strong position as an exporter, Putin said.

Putin must stop messing around in private buiness planning. If he wants to challenge them on prices, he should open Russia up to imported steel. Then the Markets will set prices, not monopolies.

I'm in favor of anti-trust actions, but we deal in a world market today and that should set prices not government actions.

Russia is open to imported steel. The point is that there is price setting going on across the industry including abroad. Putin also admitted dumping by Russian companies on the international market and said that must end too. Dumping is something Bush should be complaining about, not Putin, but Bush is in league with big business and doesnt give a rats ass about consumers anywhere.

Quote: The point is that there is price setting going on across the industry including abroad.

I don't believe that. The problem right now is there is excess demand for ALL comodities in the world. China is building infrastructure like crazy and India is right behind them. Demand is way up and supply is being challenged. That's what's causing higher prices, not price setting.

Lets not forget that steel producing is majority by publically owned conglomerates worldwide. The Oligarchs may own majority in Russia, but not around the world. Prices are determined by supply and demand, not price fixing.

I can't speak for the situation among Russian steel producers but if Putin wants to control domestic prices all he needs to do is throw the door wide open to Chinese, Korean, German and Japanese steel producers. He'll bring Russian market prices down to world standards, but no lower.

Putin made it clear that the reason the prices abroad are so low was because of dumping. Firms sell steel at a loss abroad to harm their competition. The Russian market is open to imports but not at dumping prices.

Supply and demand games cant justify the rapid swings in prices the market has seen. Putin is effectively admitting that Russian companies are gaming the system to everyones detriment. I dont understand how what he said is in any way controversial. Dumping is something the West should be happy Russia is admitting too. Dumping cases against Chinese producers have been brought before the WTO. We all know this stuff is going on.

Quote: Firms sell steel at a loss abroad to harm their competition.

Not many companies I know of will sustain losses long term and stay in business. US Steel is owned by the stockholders. Kobe Steel, Nippon Steel, Peng Steel (Austria), KIS (Korean) Steel and all the others I know of are publically owned as well.

They need to make profits to pay dividends and overhead. Companies may dump steel in the short run to grab entry into a market, but not long term. It's foolish business, frankly.

The problem in Russia as I understand it is you're moving from an economy with controlled prices to a market driven economy. That's good, but the downside is you're used to low prices on certain items an in the short term those prices may climb dramatically to match world prices. That may be what's going on.

If Putin is smart he'll just notify the Russian Oligarch owned companies that he'll be keeping an eye on what they charge for steel domestically while at the same time doing whatever he can to encourage imported commodities. That alone will scare them into line.

Russia liberalized prices in one day over a decade ago, that is not what is going on. Yeltsin's big mistake was that he liberalized prices in one day thus destroying the entire economy. The only market where prices werent liberalized until recently was energy. 10% of US steel output is now in Russian hands and Russian steel producers were dumping on the US market for over a decade, the result was bankrupted US steel mills that Russian firms could then purchase for pennies on the dollar. Mission accomplised, now stop, was Putin's message. The real problem as I see it is that this was a speech that should have come from George Bush and not Vladimir Putin.

Steel prices in Russia are in some categories twice the world market price because Russian firms abused the domestic market to finance their dumping activities.

The last thing Putin wants to do is let foreign controlled companies take over in the steel market, it would be devastating to outside towns. Neither do I think he really wanted for the Russian companies to stop dumping in foreign markets, all he intended to do was cut the price that these companies charge in the domestic market. This will undoubtedly challenge their purchasing spree but it wont stop it.

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Quote: The last thing Putin wants to do is let foreign controlled companies take over in the steel market

If that's the case then Putin doesn't understand how free enterprise works. Russian steel producers need to compete in a world market.

Frankly, I don't think any steel producer is in danger in the short term, not with China sucking up all the steel they can get their hands on. And if Russian producers are charging exorbitant prices for domestic steel all you have to do is buy from the Japanese or Koreans. Problem solved.

Moscow needs that steel too, there is almost $15 billion worth of construction in the MIBC alone. Putin needed lower prices and he fixed it in less than a day, something that would have taken months if not years in the West. The contractors cant wait for a year, and Putin knows that. The bottom line is that he didnt want any radical changes to take place, he isnt against buying up US steel firms, he needed a simple fix for the domestic market.

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We all know that Putin is still the boss in Russia and that Medvedev was HAND PICKED by Putin to "succeed" him. You can clearly see that whenever the 2 appear in public together, Medvedev carries himself with subservient body language and with a man like Putin, with his credentials, this is understandable. With that said, I think that while Putin is kind of USSR-LIKE in some areas, in alot of other areas he is definitely thinking globally and not so introverted like past leaders. To wit, he has permitted Pepsi to buy out certain major Russian juice and beverage companies and to have a larger presence in Russia than ever before. In fact, Russia is one of the largest markets for Pepsi's soda and juice business and also has it's largest bottling operation outside the U.S.. (Pepsi Bottling Group.........symbol:PBG ON THE NYSE) . Putin has combined the forcefulness of the USSR with savy business IQ, which underline the need for outside investment and an overall opening of it's markets. He has somehow found a happy medium. Not too many leaders can say that, especially these days.



http://kypros.org/Occupied_Cyprus/lambousa/

Putins speech, funniest sh1t I have seen thus far. My favourite line,

"of course illness is illness, but I think Igor Vladimirovich should get well as soon as possible, or else a doctor will have to pay him a visit, to clear up all these problems"



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If Mechel falls to 15 a share it might be a very good buy, compared to other Russian steel firms they are becoming very undervalued. Today they lost 4.5%, it will either level out or fall through, if they level out thats an easy 300% return in less than a year.

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Me was right, MTL up 11% today

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