Kashkari & Consumer Credit Curtail Stock & Bond Gains
Another quiet macro day (although an ugly picture was painted late on by the unexpectedly weak revolving credit increase – potentially signaling a US consumer who really has hit their limit).
Some FedSpeak wiped a little lipstick off the early pig’s squeeze higher as Kashkari seemed to offer both sides some hope (but it spoiled the fun with the ‘we could hike’ line):
“It’s a little too soon to declare that we’re definitely stalled out [on disininflation],” Kashkari says on Bloomberg Television.
“The most likely scenario is we sit here for an extended period of time,” he added later at the Milken Institute Global Conference.
“If inflation starts to tick back down or we saw some marked weakening in the labor market then that might cause us to cut back on interest rates.”
“Or if we get convinced eventually that inflation is embedded or entrenched now at 3% and that we need to go higher [in rates], we would do that if we needed to,” he added.
Stocks reversed their gains (leaving only squeezable Small Caps higher). Selling pressure in the last few minutes really took the shine off…
Goldman’s trading desk highlighted the fact that their buyback desk was running at 1.4x ytd daily avg notional executed (Equating to $5.5b of US equities purchased street wide on daily basis). They also added that ETF and Swaps desks are much more active than cash and dominated by HF activity (short hedges getting scaled back).
The post-Powell resurgence of Mag7 stocks stalled today…
Source: Bloomberg
…and ‘most shorted’ stocks flatlined as algos could not ignite any momentum…
Source: Bloomberg
Treasury bonds also reversed on Kashkari’s comments (yields reversing higher to almost erase earlier declines)…
Source: Bloomberg
While stocks and bonds reversed on that, rate-cut expectations were stoic…
Source: Bloomberg
The dollar rallied for the first time in 5 days (but only modestly)…
Source: Bloomberg
…and the dollar’s gains were gold’s losses…
Source: Bloomberg
Bitcoin was quiet… too quiet.. today, hovering just above $63,000…
Source: Bloomberg
…after a second day in a row of net inflows…
Source: Bloomberg
Oil prices were flat on the day, recovering from losses during the EU session…
Pfizer Stock Hit After Boy Dies Of Cardiac Arrest During Gene Therapy Trial
Stock in Pfizer dropped on Tuesday after a young boy receiving experimental gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy died during the trial.
According to STAT News, Pfizer has yet to determine exactly what happened or how the boy diedPfizer has confirmed that the boy suffered cardiac arrest, and ispausing crossing over patients in its randomized phase 3 trial of the treatment in older boys, according to the report. The company will, for now, stop dosing patients who initially received a placebo with the gene therapy after a year.
Pfizer is expected to announce data from the study in the upcoming weeks.
Of note, in 1999 Jesse Gelsinger was the first person publicly identified as having died during a clinical trial for gene therapy – which caused the FDA to shutter human genetic research at Penn’s Institute for Gene Therapy.
Shares in the pharmaceutical giant took an immediate hit on the news.
Shocking Collapse In Credit Card Debt Growth Just As Card APRs Hit All Time High
After several months of wild swings in US consumer debt, culminating with last month’s jump in credit card debt to a new all time high despite record high credit card rates, in March households finally hit a brick wall because according to the latest consumer credit data published by the Federal Reserve moments ago, in the last month of Q1, total consumer debt rose by a paltry $6.274 billion, which was not only nearly a more than 60% miss to consensus estimates of $15.0 billion…
… but also a dramatic slowdown from February, tumbling by almost $9BN, the biggest monthly drop in the rate of change in 2024.
But it was when looking into the details of the report, we find something remarkable: while non-revolving credit rose a modest $6.1BN, up a bit from February’s $4.3BN, and exactly half the $12.2BN average monthly increase in nonrevolving credit over the past decade…
… which is to be expected in a time when student debt continues to shrink due to illegal debt discharges by the Biden admin (which is defying SCOTUS and continues to forgive billions in student loans) while auto loans are barely rising due to record interest rates…
… what was the biggest shock in today’s data was the absolute collapse in revolving credit growth, i.e., credit card debt, which plunged from a $10.7BN increase in February – one of the biggest monthly prints on record – to barely positive, or $152 million, the smallest monthly increase since the covid crash!
Of course with the Fed refusing to cut rates – for good reason – the brutal slowdown in new credit card debt is hardly a surprise since as the Fed also reported that in Q1, the average rate across all commercial banks on all credit card amounts just hit a new record high of 21.59%, which is a vivid reminders that while banks are happy to hike credit card rates, they rarely if ever cut them, and it’s also one of the main reasons why Goldman’s trading desk just went bearish on US consumers.
Yet with consumers ever more strapped for actual cash and equity, as the personal savings rate in the US has collapsed from over 5% to 3.2% – the lowest since 2022 – in just a few months…
… there is only so much more credit card maxing out that can take place before reality finally sets in, as can be seen in the next and perhaps most striking chart yet: total credit card debt is record high while the personal savings rate is record low!
Then again, with an election on the horizon – one which ensures that any credit-card fueled spending must be encouraged – don’t be surprised if the White House instructs banks to just ignore soaring delinquency and charge-off rates…
Disney+ is taking more flak for crowbarring a them/them character into its latest Star Wars series.
The animated show Tales of the Empire, is made up of six shorts, with one of the episodes featuring a non-binary Jedi.
In a scene below, the they/them agrees to surrender to an Inquisitor, a character that hunts Jedi, just as another Inquisitor sneaks up from behind and attempts to kill the they/them.
You’d be forgiven for having missed it, given that there are so many crapped out Star Wars things now, that only someone with no social life at all can keep up with them.
New Star Wars show on Disney+ ‘Tales of the Empire’ features a non-binary character that uses they/them pronouns.
Parents, make sure you know what your kids are watching!
“They’re still alive,” one of the Inquisitors says while checking the character’s heartbeat. “We need to get them to the ship. We can save them.”
“Forget it, let them die,” the other one responds.
“They were about to surrender,” the first one notes, again repeating the pronoun just to make sure you heard it… AGAIN.
The pronouns have nothing to do with the progression of the story, in fact it actually makes it confusing. The pronouns are just blatantly in there to forward THE MESSAGE, as with everything Disney does these days.
This is the most obvious example of forced diversity. And it completely destroys the immersive nature of narrative storytelling, which is why it is so detrimental. And that doesn’t even touch on how jarring and confusing it is for the viewer. I assumed it was a scripting error.…
The group of people I was watching with had to replay several minutes of the show to try to figure out to whom these characters were referring. We thought we missed a scene or some dialogue, and came to the conclusion that it was a scripting error.
That is so strange. I watched the show myself today and remember being confused at all the they/them pronouns. I thought they were talking about all the people in the village. I assumed the guy was dead. I mean he caught a lightsaber to the back 😂.
— CultureWarStrategy (@TheCultureWar02) May 7, 2024
Many pointed out that it makes little sense that the villain respects the pronouns of the character as she attempts to murder they/them.
Villain kills person…. but also respects their use of bizarre pronouns…
Amazing how the villain, even after murdering the nonbinary, is respectful of the trans pronouns! Not even the bad guys are allowed to transgress this rule.
The funniest thing here isn’t the non-binary Jedi. It’s that the Empire is respecting the use of the they/them pronouns. Because Emperor Palpatine and Lord Vader wouldn’t want anyone misgendered. https://t.co/DJ7cRRE8CW
As we previously highlighted, the next movie instalment of the Star Wars franchise, is to be directed by a Pakistani feminist activist, and the plot “will be shaped by a woman”.
Place your bets on how many tens of millions they’ll lose at the box office.
* * *
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Stellar 3Y Auction Stops-Through Thanks To Jump In Foreign Demand
The first refunding auction of the quarter just concluded when the Treasury sold $58BN in 3 Year paper, unchanged from last month’s size and matching the previous record high hit during the covid crisis.
The auction priced at a high yield of 4.605%, up from 4.548% in April, but while that auction tailed by 2bps, today’s auction stopped through the When Issued 4.608% by 0.3bps, the 4th stopping through auction in the past five as shown below.
The Bid to Cover rose to 2.632 from 2.497 last month, this was the highest since January and well above the five-auction average of 2.573.
The internals were also solid: indirects jumped to 65.5%, up from 60.3% and above the recent average of 63.0%; and with Directs awarded 19.6%, the second highest since December (only April’s 20.4% was higher), Dealers were left with 14.9% of the final auction, below the recent average of 18.3%.
Overall, this was a very solid auction, with impressive demand and internals. Curiously, in response to the auction the 10Y yield – which was trading near session lows of 4.43% ahead of the auction – moved higher by about 1 basis point.
Florida’s governor has signed a first-of-its-kind bill into law to officially ban lab-grown meat, in a bid to protect the Sunshine State’s cattle industry and its residents.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the legislation, SB1084, into law at a ceremony in Wauchula on May 1. The sweeping 81-page agricultural package officially bans “the manufacture for sale, sale, holding or offering for sale, or distribution of cultivated meat” in the Sunshine State.
The bill includes 22 additional measures, ranging from the preemption of federal regulations for electric vehicle stations in the state to a redefinition of the term. “hemp extract.” The ban does not include Impossible meat, which is a plant-based meat alternative.
Gov. DeSantis’ office said in a statement that Florida is “taking action to stop the World Economic Forum’s goal of forcing the world to eat lab-grown meat and insects.”
Gov. DeSantis described the legislation as the state’s effort to push back against the plan by global elites to force the world to consume “meat grown in a petri dish or bugs to achieve their authoritarian goals.”
“Take your fake lab-grown meat elsewhere,” he said at the press conference in Wauchula. “We’re not doing that in the state of Florida.”
Gov. DeSantis also addressed the WEF’s hypocrisy of flying around the world on private jets advocating for the consumption of fake meat and insects as a means to fight climate change.
Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Wilton Simpson described Florida’s leadership in banning lab-grown meat“ as a ”step in the right direction.”
“We must protect our incredible farmers and the integrity of American agriculture,” he said. “Lab-grown meat is a disgraceful attempt to undermine our proud traditions and prosperity and is in direct opposition to authentic agriculture.
Lab grown meat is created in a laboratory by taking stem cells from an animal and placing them in tanks called bioreactors full of a culture medium that enables them to multiply.
The American Cancer Society has admitted that bioengineered foods can trigger reactions in people with allergies.
Dr. Sayed Haider told The Epoch Times in an October 2023 interview that bioengineered food itself could be “toxic,” saying evidence already suggests that it promotes antibiotic resistance, triggers immunosuppression, and even causes cancer.
The law takes effect on July 1.
Sen. Jay Collins (R-Tampa), the sponsor of the bill, told The Epoch Times that “it feels good” to know the bill will soon take effect.
He noted that proponents of lab-grown meat cannot conclusively prove that the product is safe to consume and ignore evidence that its more harmful to the environment than the cows they want to eliminate.
“Ultimately, it’s not cost ineffective. The ethical dilemmas, the food safety dilemmas, and the long-term efficacy and health safety for our people, it’s just not worth it,” he said.
Now that Florida has taken the first step to ban the controversial meat substitute, he believes other states will follow.
“When you shine a light on this, it doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat of a Republican. Almost everybody has the same thought when you talk about this. ‘That’s creepy. It’s gross. I don’t want to feed my family this. Is this safe?’ That’s a problem,” Rep. Collins suggested.
“What we’re doing here is a vote for traditional agriculture,” he explained. “You have to feed people. This is a natural protein that people have eaten historically. Let’s not create a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.”
‘Absolutely Profit Driven’
Rep. Danny Alvarez (R-Hillsborough County), who sponsored the House version of the bill, said a key part of the legislation is to protect public health.
“This is a really big deal,” he told The Epoch Times.
Anyone who knowingly violates the new law is guilty of a second-degree misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of $500 and up to 60 days of imprisonment for each infraction.
Food establishments that manufacture, distribute, or sell lab-grown meat found to be in violation of the law can be shut down and the owners can be fined and suffer jail time.
In addition, restaurants, stores or any other businesses caught selling fake meat will be subject to an “immediate stop-sale order” and could lose their operating license upon conviction.
“This is your state government standing up and saying, ‘If you want to come in and have access to our citizens, you’ve got to prove to us that this completely novel concept doesn’t have any significant or long-term safety issues for our people, and if we’re going to allow you to do that, we’re going to make sure we’re putting our people in front of your profit,” he said.
He described how the pressure he was subjected to by both individuals and highly paid lobbyists in the pro-cultured meat camp “was borderline disgusting.”
Requests to provide evidence that the product is safe for human consumption was met with that it was approved by the federal government.
On June 21, 2023, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) granted its first-ever approval to produce cell-cultured meat to two companies in the United States, Good Meat and Upside Food.
Rep. Alvarez noted that this same federal government approved the COVID-19 vaccines and said smoking, saccharin, and Vioxx were safe.
He is also convinced that the push for fake meat has nothing to do with mitigating climate change.
“This is absolutely profit driven because they have a new product on the market that they’re cornering. Good for them,” he said. “But to believe that climate change or animal safety are the drivers behind this you would have to be absurdly uninformed.”
A University of California, UC Davis study from a year ago confirmed that the process used to create lab-grown meat is “resource intensive.”
Corresponding author Edward Spang said the findings suggest that producing cultured meat is more harmful to the environment that conventional cattle farming.
“It’s not a panacea,” he explained, and while it might be possible to reduce the environmental impact of lab-grown meat production in the future, Mr. Spang said it will ”require significant technical advancement to simultaneously increase the performance and decrease the cost of the cell culture media.”
According to Rep. Alvarez, more research is need.
“It isn’t for prime time,” he said.
‘A Delicate Balance’
In an interview with The Epoch Times, Florida Agricultural Commissioner Wilton Simpson said that knowing the law will take effect very soon is “very encouraging for our farmers.”
As Mr. Simpson explained, the main goal is not only to protect Florida’s farmers, but to maintain the state’s supply chain to make sure that Florida can provide the “the most safe, abundant, and affordable food anywhere in the world.”
“This bill helps us obtain those goals,” he said.
He, too, believes the push for synthetic meat is about profit, not about protecting the environment, explaining that the more someone researches the push for lab-grown meat the more they realize the supporters behind the effort are “very wealthy businesspeople trying to corner the market on a product and sell it through an ideology.”
Bill Gates has been a major investor in Upside Foods since its launch in 2017.
Mr. Simpson also suggested that the pressure put on Florida’s farmers by national politics and Environmental, Social and Governance policies is almost overwhelming.
“There is a delicate balance and a tipping point where your [state agriculture] can no longer survive the regulations put out by the federal government,” he said.
Almost half of the land set aside for agriculture in Florida is used to raise cattle, according to the Range Cattle Research & Education Center at the University of Florida (UF).
The county with the highest herd count is Okeechobee, with 165,000, according to 2022 data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The most recent update on the Florida Cattle Market from UF shows that Florida ranks ninth for beef cattle production in the United States, with around 862,000 heads of cattle, a decline of about three percent over 2023. The report also noted that nine of the states on the Top 10 list saw a decline in cattle production. Nationally, the United States has the lowest beef cow herd in over 60 years.
Mr. Simpson said he isn’t surprised that Florida’s cattle herd has shrunk. What does surprise him is that there are people who believe eating a piece of synthetic meat grown from a biomass and served from a 3-D printer is safer than eating traditionally farmed meat.
Decimating Florida’s cattle herd to make way for fake meat would be “a terrible mistake,” which he believes would be regretted later.
Just as it will take many years for Florida’s citrus industry to recover from greening, he said, it would take many years to overcome such a profound deficit in the state’s cattle herd.
“In Florida, we’re not going to allow the disruption of our net supply chain,” Mr. Simpson asserted. “We’re not going to be guinea pigs for the leftist-ideas of net-zero, and yesterday we went a long way to prove that, and everybody knows it.”
TikTok Sues US Government Over ‘Forced-Sale’ Or ‘Ban’ Law
As was promised and expected, TikTok and its Chinese parent ByteDance have sued to challenge the new US law, arguing that the law is unconstitutional.
The New York Times reports, citing a petition the company provided, that the company alleges the new law violates users’ First Amendment rights, by effectively removing an app that millions of Americans use to share their views and communicate freely.
“For the first time in history, Congress has enacted a law that subjects a single, named speech platform to a permanent, nationwide ban, and bars every American from participating in a unique online community with more than one billion people worldwide,” the company said in the 67-page petition it provided, which initiates the lawsuit.
“There is no question: The act will force a shutdown of TikTok by Jan. 19, 2025.”
The company also claims that a divestiture is “simply not possible” to complete within the law’s 270-day timeline.
As NYTimes reports, at the heart of the case will be lawmakers’ intent to defend the United States from what they and some security experts say is a national security threat because the Chinese government could lean on ByteDance to turn over sensitive TikTok user data or use the app to spread propaganda. Legal experts have said the mandate to sell or block the app could result in changes to TikTok’s content policies and shape what users are able to freely share on the platform, potentially violating their free speech rights.
TikTok argued in its suit that selling its U.S. operations was not “commercially, technologically, or legally feasible.”
A part of that argument hinges on how TikTok and its competitors are global in nature and content is accessible across country borders, with international videos as part of its appeal.
National security concerns about TikTok are “speculative” and fall short of what’s required to justify violating First Amendment rights, the company argued in its suit, adding that President Biden and other members of Congress’s use of the platform undermines claims that it’s a threat.
TikTok filed the suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit where the company asked the court to issue a declaratory judgment saying that the law violates the Constitution and to issue an order that would stop Attorney General Merrick B. Garland from enforcing it.
Several legal experts expect the case to land in front of the Supreme Court.
Biden Withholds Shipment Of Boeing-Made Precision Bombs From Israel Over Rafah Offensive
Update(1212ET): We noted earlier that Israel’s Rafah ground offensive currently in progress constitutes a glaring instance of Netanyahu’s willingness to blow past Biden’s ‘red line’ which was repeatedly verbalized in the last weeks and months.
It now appears that Biden is ready to belatedly get ‘tough’ (or at least keep up the appearance of getting tough on Israel for the sake of US Progressives who have been revoking their support in droves). The below major headline just hit via Politico:
Biden administration is holding shipments of Boeing manufactured precision bombs to send a political message to Israel, according to Politico.
This follows on the heels of Axios’ Sunday reporting which said an initial ammo shipment has been held up. Israeli officials are said to be seething.
Anyway…
The US is only paying for Israel’s war and providing the weapons they use in Gaza. No need to pay attention to any “red lines” that doddering old man in the WH issued.https://t.co/yOIQOiwZk9pic.twitter.com/ueUw4sSSlU
Meanwhile, Netanyahu has released a fresh statement on the Rafah offensive and negotiations in Cairo…
Last night I ordered, with the approval of the War Cabinet, to operate in Rafah. Within hours our forces raised the Israeli flags at the Rafah crossing and took down the Hamas flags.
The entry into Rafah serves two main war goals: the return of our abductees and the elimination of Hamas. We have already proven in the previous release of the abductees – military pressure on Hamas is a necessary condition for the return of our abductees.
Hamas’ proposal yesterday was intended to torpedo the entry of our forces into Rafah. It did not happen. As the War Cabinet unanimously determined, the Hamas proposal is very far from Israel’s necessary requirements.
Israel will not allow Hamas to restore its evil rule in the Gaza Strip, Israel will not allow it to restore its military capabilities to continue striving for our destruction. Israel cannot accept a proposal that endangers the security of our citizens and the future of our country.
Therefore, I instructed the delegation that went to Cairo: continue to stand firm on the conditions necessary for the release of our abductees, continue to stand firm on the essential requirements for guaranteeing Israel’s security.
Israel is now threatening to go ‘deeper’ into Rafah and initiate the next military stage of the operation if Hamas rejects current Israeli offers on the table.
Interestingly, all of this comes on the occasion of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s annual “Days of Remembrance ceremony” which Biden spoke at.
During the remarks he sought to make an Oct.7 connection: “Here we are, not 75 years later, but just seven and a half months later– people are already forgetting that Hamas unleashed this terror.”
“I understand people have strong beliefs and deep convictions about the world … but there is no place on any campus in America, any place in America, for antisemitism or hate speech or threats of violence of any kind.”
He also said “there’s no place for antisemitism on any campus in the US” – in reference to ongoing protests and clashes with police at various places, especially at east coast and west coast schools.
This Holocaust Remembrance Day, we mourn the six million Jews who were killed by the Nazis during one of the darkest chapters in human history.
And we recommit to heeding the lessons of the Shoah and realizing the responsibility of “Never Again.”
And below are some remarks by Netanyahu on the same day:
Prime Minister Netanyahu at the Holocaust Remembrance Day opening ceremony: “If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone… And I say to you, we will defeat our genocidal enemies.
Never again is now!”
🎥Yad Vashem pic.twitter.com/z7VFTIPX8b
— Israel National News – Arutz Sheva (@ArutzSheva_En) May 5, 2024
House Speaker Johnson was perhaps the most dramatic in his comparisons:
Speaker Johnson, addressing today’s Holocaust Remembrance Ceremony at the US Capitol, compares US college campuses to Nazi Germany. He says if you close your eyes, “you can hear screams coming from the gas chambers.” He says this is why Congress just passed $24 Billion for Israel pic.twitter.com/wN6OeoMmEj
Overnight it’s been confirmed that Israeli ground forces have begun moving into Rafah, with IDF tanks having seized Gaza’s vital Rafah border crossing in the last hours. The IDF plans to monitor all aid going into the Gaza Strip, but international aid organizations warn this could be a death sentence for a population already teetering on the brink of full-blown famine.
In a Monday phone call President Biden had warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against launching a ground attack on Rafah, but the Israeli leader has once again brushed off US ‘red lines’ as well as the warnings of other international allies like France.
In a first reaction since tanks entered Rafah, the US State Department has said: “We continue to believe that a hostage deal is in the best interest of the Israeli and the Palestinian people; it would bring an immediate ceasefire and allow increased humanitarian assistance into Gaza.”
An anonymous Israeli official has claimed to local media that this is a “limited operation” and that at this point the offensive is being used for leverage by Tel Aviv. “It is being implemented to pressure Hamas” to accept a deal, the officials said.
Israel has claimed that the Rafah crossing is being used “for terrorist purposes” after four IDF troops were killed near Kerem Shalom on Sunday due to an attack launched from near the crossing by Hamas militants.
The UN humanitarian affairs office has described that all fuel for aid trucks and generators enters the Strip through the Rafah crossing and that “If no fuel comes in for a prolonged period of time, it would be a very effective way of putting the humanitarian operation in its grave.”
The Israeli 401st Brigade entered the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing early Tuesday, the Israeli military said, taking “operational control” of it. Footage released by the military showed Israeli flags flying from tanks that seized the area. It also said that ground troops and airstrikes targeted suspected Hamas positions in Rafah.
Egypt now fears that a quarter-million people could quickly pour across the border and into the Sinai. Already Reuters has reported at least 23 people killed, including six women and five children, according to local hospitals.
Mass exodus of civilians seeking escape from Rafah…
— What the media hides. (@narrative_hole) May 7, 2024
A Palestinian victim of the onslaught, Abu Amra, has been cited in Al Jazeera as saying. “We did nothing … we don’t have Hamas,” after his wife, two brothers, sister, and niece were reported killed. “We found fire devouring us. The house was turned upside down.”
But Israel’s military says its operations are targeted and aimed at rooting out terrorists. According to one limited operation detailed in Times of Israel:
The IDF and Border Police say they have wrapped up a 20-hour operation in the West Bank city of Tulkarem. Amid the operation, troops killed a gunman, detained six wanted Palestinians, seized weaponry and demolished three bomb-making labs, the military says.
Combat engineers also ripped up roads where explosive devices were planted, the IDF adds.
Newly leaked video from Rafah shows a tank crushing an “I love Gaza” sign…
— איתי בלומנטל 🇮🇱 Itay Blumental (@ItayBlumental) May 7, 2024
So far, it seems a deal is not yet completely lost, as Israeli officials are said to be examining the Egyptian-Qatari proposed deal that on Monday Hamas said it had agreed to.
But Hamas has condemned the “dangerous escalation” in Rafah, saying in a statement, “This crime – which comes directly after the Hamas movement announced its approval of the mediators’ proposal – confirms the occupation’s
intention to disrupt mediation efforts for a ceasefire and the release of prisoners.” Meanwhile, domestic pressure in the US will grow for the Biden administration to do something.
Zelensky Assassination Plot Foiled, Two Colonels Arrested, Ukraine Intelligence Says
The Ukrainian government and intelligence services are claiming that a major assassination plot targeting President Volodymyr has been thwarted. The plot also allegedly aimed to take out other top military and political figures.
Ukraine’s state security service (SBU) unveiled the plot Tuesday in announcing the detention of two colonels in the State Guard of Ukraine said to be involved in the criminal conspiracy. The State Guard is responsible for protecting top political as well as military figures, somewhat akin to the Secret Service in the US.
If found guilty, the detained colonels would face a life sentence, or possibly a worse fate given the country is currently under martial law due to the long-running war.
The SBU is alleging Russian involvement, specifically claiming that a network of agents from Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) had been “preparing the assassination of the president of Ukraine” and other senior officials.
“Counterintelligence were detained and SBU investigators foiled the plans of the FSB to eliminate the president of Ukraine and other representatives of the top military and political leadership of the state,” the SBU stated on Telegram.
Authorities say of the timing that the plot was intended to be initiated just prior to Russia’s Vladimir Putin being inaugurated for a fifth term as president on Tuesday. The Telegraph writes:
The failed kidnap and killing was supposed to be a ‘gift’ to Vladimir Putin ahead of his inauguration, the head of Ukraine’s secret service claimed.
The Kremlin has as expected denied these new accusations, as well as prior claims it orchestrated assassination attempts.
According to more details of the foiled attempt via the Associated Press:
The Ukrainian statement said the Russian intelligence agents targeting Zelenskyy sought out members of the Ukrainian military close to the president’s security detail who could take the head of state hostage and later kill him. The operation was run from Moscow, it said, providing the names of three alleged Russian spies behind the conspiracy.
The broader plan was to identify the location of senior Ukrainian officials and target them with a rocket attack, followed by drones and missiles.
“The enemy’s plan was as follows: first, the recruited agent had to observe the movement of the person under guard and pass information to the enemy,” the SBU said.
In 2022, Zelensky claimed to have survived ten assassination plots which were uncovered before conspirators got close.
Ukraine is linking the assassination plot to Putin’s inauguration happening in Moscow:
📹 Get a glimpse of the most amazing moments from Vladimir Putin’s recent inauguration ceremony. pic.twitter.com/wmufuVitGc
An incident in early March was widely reported as a direct Russian attempt to take Zelensky’s life. At that time the Ukrainian leader had visited the port city of Odessa with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos. Russia reportedly sent missiles or drones against the city at the very moment of their visit.
Zelensky and Mitsotakis had described that explosions rang out while they toured Odesa. “We heard the sound of sirens and explosions that took place near us. We did not have time to get to a shelter,” Mitsotakis told reporters. Later reports of the incident claimed it was nothing less than a targeted assassination attempt.
The OPEC+ group is still studying whether to raise oil production but it would act on supply if necessary, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Tuesday.
The possibility to raise supply is still being reviewed, Russia’s top oilman said, as carried by Russian news agency Interfax.
“It always depends on the current situation, the balance of supply and demand,” Novak said.
“Everything is being analyzed. Right now, you don’t need to predict anything, you just need to see how the market feels,” he said.
Novak added that OPEC+ participants “are constantly monitoring the situation, and this is our plan for the second quarter, we agreed with our colleagues that these voluntary cuts can be adjusted to boost supply if necessary.”
“This is a constant process,” Novak stressed.
The OPEC+ group is meeting on June 1 to decide how to proceed with the current production cuts in the second half of the year. The current supply agreement which removes around 2.2 million barrels per day (bpd) off the market now including Saudi Arabia’s 1 million voluntary cut, expires at the end of June.
As of the end of last week, OPEC+ had yet to start formal talks on the alliance’s production policy, sources from producers part of the deal told Reuters.
If oil demand fails to accelerate, the group could keep the oil production cuts in place, the sources added.
“We think there’s a good chance that OPEC+ will extend beyond June – but we aren’t yet putting a firm view because we don’t think they’ve actually got into the real period of discussion and decision-making,” Richard Bronze of consultancy Energy Aspects told Reuters.
The majority of analysts expect OPEC+ to extend the cut into the second half of 2024, according to a survey by Bloomberg from last week.
