Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑Mon Jul 11, 2022 6:20 am
Ah, the original Reuters gives a bit more explanation:
Sanctions aimed at cutting Russia’s access to the global financial system have also hampered purchases of its agricultural products, he said, as some buyers seek to avoid complications with payment. A top chickpea exporter, Russia normally accounts for about 25% of global trade, he said.
https://www.reuters.com/article/ukraine ... FL1N2XV2R6
There was a trend in journalism prior to February 2022 (and after that too, often) of covering Ukraine issues as a subset of Russian ones, leaving them to a Moscow bureau. I would say that the press doesn't seem to understand the need to apply a postcolonial lens to territories once colonised by the Russian Empire, but honestly, they aren't very good at doing that anywhere.
Reuters were probably the worst at this, right down to a formal partnership with TASS. A lot of their articles prior to this February (note - not prior to the invasion. The invasion was in 2014) incorporated quite a few Kremlin talking points.
In the long run, sanctions may affect Russia's food production, by preventing replacement or repair of agricultural machinery. Sanctions on the financial sector are unlikely to have a major impact - contrary to various claims that Russia's been cut off from SWIFT, in truth, only a few Russian banks have been cut off from SWIFT. There's plenty of ways to pay Russia/Russians for things they export, and indeed European countries have spent rather more money buying energy from Russia than they have sending aid to Ukraine. The potential long term consequences are just one more reason why it is so important to send sufficient military aid to get the war over as soon as possible.
It's not just Reuters who are reporting without the necessary background understanding, though. Here's a recent one from the NYT.
Is Igor Vsevolodovich Girkin a military analyst critical of Russia's strategy in Ukraine? Well yes, but he's also a few other things worth noting. Also known as Igor Strelkov, he was an FSB operative for many years. He got up to no good in Transnistria and Bosnia - where he is accused of involvement in the Visegrad massacre. In Chechnya, he was involved in the abduction, torture and disappearance of Chechens opposed to Russian rule. He had a major role in the invasion of Crimea, and his own statements are one of the pieces of evidence that confirm the seizure was done by force, and was not a pro-Russian revolt by Crimeans. He was then instrumental in the Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine, where he was involved in the torture and murder of POWs and political captives. During this period, he was supplied with heavy equipment by the Kremlin, including the Buk-9M83 missile his forces used to shoot down Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, an attack that killed almost three hundred people.
So yeah. He analyses military stuff, but leaving it at that is either ignorant, or downright negligent, and in neither case acceptable for a journalist. Girkin is a popular source in OSINT spheres as he gives relatively accurate reports that are based on information from the Russian side of things, but are critical of Russian leadership. He is not critical because that leadership is revanchist and imperialist and waging a needless war of choice, though - he is critical because that leadership is not imperialist or ruthless enough, and is not winning the needless war of choice and not, in his view, doing enough to do so.