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Agree that Kursk is a calculated move, but it’s a very risky one which may well force Russian escalation. I think that domestic political pressure will force Russia to respond in ways that they haven’t thus far. That will push peace talks even further away given the maximalist aims of Kiev and its western backers.

FXPO’s share price has slipped back into the 40s and, as Ukraine’s front line position further erodes in the east, the impact of the Kursk offensive is unlikely IMO to prevent the FXPO price from continuing heading down.

Unless there is a complete collapse of the AFU position, prospects for peace look further away now than they have for a while.

Ukraine’s adventure in Kursk is brave and certainly caught the Russians off guard. Unfortunately for them, committing 3 brigades to certain defeat is not terribly smart when you are short on manpower.

It also invites Russian retaliation, and when it comes to escalation dominance, Russia wins. I know many don’t understand escalation dominance but worth trying.

Anyway, Kursk is bad news for FXPO. It’s not going news on any score.

Evanescence, someone who likes to routinely dismiss, cancel and block anyone with whom he disagrees, has revealed to us all that he has a PhD.

I don’t know whether this is supposed to impress us or amuse. Because he soon resorts to the usual diatribe of name calling and insults, calling Putin a ‘scumbag’ etc.

The problem Evanescent is that we live in the real world. Putin is the leader of Russia, Europe’s largest and most powerful state, and no amount of insults will change that. So whatever you think of him is irrelevant. We need to make investment decisions based on reality not what we perceive to be ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.

FXPO and Ukraine are in a desperate parlous position precisely because reality doesn’t care about virtue. Ukraine hasn’t become less corrupt because western elites and media now refuse to criticise it and instead have launched a propaganda campaign singing its praises.

FXPO gets inexorably nearer to the front line over time because Russia is winning this war of attrition. The longer this war goes on the greater the chances that FXPO’s interests are damaged.

Making pious claims about the righteousness of Ukraine is literally irrelevant and pointless. We must deal with reality in making investment decisions. The market does (eventually) which is why FXPO is once again back in the 40s.

I love the irony that those who tell us how much they love freedom and democracy are first to filter views they don’t agree with. I love that they pontificate over how virtuous Ukraine is, but fail to acknowledge that it is, according to pre war western liberal media, both corrupt and lacking in democratic credentials.

Most of all I love the Ukrainian flag flying, the ‘slava Ukraini’, the ‘as long as it takes’ mantra.

Yet all the while these cheerleaders of destruction refuse to commit so much as one single NATO soldier to the fight. Not one. Because we don’t want to fight the evil Russians. That’s a job for Ukrainians. It might be good v evil but we’re safely on the sidelines. We fight with words and money, but we’re not committed to blood.

To the last Ukrainian, forever war, till the end ……. what a tragedy and one in which the West is also covered in blood, although other people’s of course.

It’s difficult to know whether Ukraine is any more serious about peace now than it has been through its sham one sided ‘peace conferences’ which demanded Russian capitulation.

What should be obvious to all is that Ukraine is paying the steepest price for continuing this war. Demographically collapsed, probably beyond repair, and with huge re-building costs, Ukraine’s future is bleak.

The West dangled NATO in front of it but refuses to offer a tangible timeline. At some point the West will pull the plug on this disaster but none of us know how much longer this will continue.

Interesting that over recent days both Zelensky and Kuleba have been talking peace.

Of course Ukraine has organised sham ‘peace conferences’ before and has its ‘peace plan’ which requires abject surrender by Russia. So the real question is whether Ukraine’s position is becoming more realistic.

I don’t know the answer to that. None of us do. Kuleba has been to China though which might indicate that more realism is creeping in.

I agree that FXPO fly when there’s a sign of credible peace negotiations. But until the maximalist rhetoric from Kiev and the West changes I believe that any FXPO break outs will likely be short lived.

Hi. The shares have been cancelled and can no longer be traded.

You should receive 14.85p per share by May 22.

It is a pointless war, but one which didn’t happen for no reason. In addition, the west has done its utmost to prolong it as long as possible. Johnson’s infamous visit to Kiev to scupper peace talks in April 2022 is well documented by those involved, including former Israel PM Naftali Bennett.

So spare the crocodile tears. Those with blood soaked hands are not solely on the Russian side.

Now Ukraine will face worse terms, those tragically killed on both sides since April 22 have no way back, and anyone invested in FXPO faces increasing chance of losing all their money.

All we can now hope is that those in Europe who hysterically demand escalation and risk war with Russia will be ignored by Washington. The stakes are too high to play virtual signalling games with the lives of innocent people on all sides.

@LoungeLizard - if it makes you feel better! Poland will officially not commit a single soldier to die in Ukraine. That’s been perfectly clear for 2 years.

Anyone still investing in this company should be prepared to lose everything IMO. Ukraine is fighting an un-winnable war, spurred on to ever more destruction by its so called allies, the self righteous ex imperial crowd led by the UK.

Since there is literally zero chance of FXPO recovering whilst the war continues, and there’s zero chance of Ukraine winning it, and currently zero chance of realistic negotiations, FXPO has only one direction to continue trending.

@Smoothbrain - nice post and interesting well made views.

I think your depiction of Putin is partly accurate, but your happy observation about how Russia can change with a new leader is widely optimistic.

Putin began his presidencies by reaching out to the West to seek a genuine security partnership. This is all fairly well documented historically but we know that this went nowhere. Part of the Russian dilemma is that what the West calls ‘partnership’ really means subservience to the US and its foreign policy interests.

That’s a price worth paying for most of the European states, but not for Russia which defends its sovereignty and independence in a way most Europeans simply can’t understand. Russia is not a defeated or bankrupt power in the way Germany and the UK were post 1945, and neither is it small and inconsequential in the way most European states are.

That’s no disrespect to anyone, but nobody really cares what Copenhagen or Madrid say on the world stage. So there’s little point expecting that Moscow will take its place at the long table of American satellite states because no Russian leader is going to take that pill and survive for long.

The West loves to call this ‘Putin’s war’ as though he single handedly defies all Russians. That’s a nonsense charicature.

But there’s more to the world than the old imperial West. And Russia is part of the global majority, deftly re-orienting trade and cultural links to Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Far from isolating Russia, the West seems to be doing rather a good job of isolating itself through its sanctions, promotion of forever wars, threats, pious lectures, and rank hypocrisy.

@Alex1978 - negotiations mean a realistic appraisal of current reality and future prospects. I understand that’s awkward when too many elites have demanded Russian defeat and reparations. But demanding the winning party surrender is a recipe for at best forever war, and at worse total destruction. The West still seems intent on pushing Ukraine down that path, and IMO that’s what makes FXPO an investment with a risk not fully appreciated by markets.

The state system doesn’t run on western media perceptions of ‘good’ v ‘evil’. It runs instead on the interplay of power, influence and interests.

Whatever you might think of Putin he is the leader of the world’s largest state and Russian interests will not change if Putin goes away. Those interests have rarely fit well with western interests for centuries, and that’s not going to change.

So those who call for regime change or hope Russia will go away are really historical illiterates.

Which brings us back to the war. Since a Ukrainian victory is incredibly unlikely, and Russia isn’t going to beg the West for forgiveness whoever leads it, what is the strategy?

You might not like negotiations but war is killing people, especially Ukrainians (and FXPO’s price).

So what are you hoping for? What’s the way out? Realism and diplomacy ends wars. Hubristic hope casting or fighting Russia by proxy is destroying Ukraine. Take your pick.

It is baffling that most of you seem to think that more military aid and therefore continued war is the key to unlocking shareholder value.

After all, war is what’s destroyed shareholder value. And unless you believe that Ukraine can actually defeat Russia, then continued war is literally pointless and self defeating, not to mention the human misery it causes.

So it strikes me that negotiations are what FXPO really needs. I know that’s anathema to the ideologues who bought into total Ukrainian victory. But we live in the world as it actually is, or at least, eventually we’re forced to live in the real world.

Continuation of the last 2 years seems to hold a lot of appeal for some, but it really makes little sense.

All slightly off topic but, contrary to the puerile propaganda spewed by western MSM, history didn’t begin in February 2022.

Russia had perfectly reasonably signalled for many years that NATO’s eastward expansion was threatening, and specifically that It would be unacceptable to have a pro west militarised Ukraine.

The West loves to talk of its ‘red lines’ but it seems unable to accept that any other state may have red lines of its own.

So Ukraine is and always will be an existential issue for Russia. Whatever crazy ideas western capitals have of Ukrainian victory and outlasting Russia are consequently dangerous illusions.

And whilst FXPO may be an investment with great upside, it seems to me that this can only be realised with peace. Given battlefield realities, that peace will come on Russian terms. Washington and Kiev are a million miles from accepting that reality.

Zelensky’s peace plan notably excludes Russia from participation and essentially requires Russian surrender and reparations. He can invite who he likes to his so called peace summits, but they are nothing more than a western PR show designed to try to keep Z in power for as long as possible.

This tired old trope gets western media excited and apparently Mr Market buys into it, but it’s all for show. No peace until Zelensky is replaced. That’s the reality and what should sustainably boost FXPO’s price.

With the share price approaching new lows, there are number of points with making in response to some of the comments:

@pacman Ukraine’s population was 44m before 2022. Since then according to the UNHCR, approximately 10m Ukrainians have fled the country. Russia incidentally is the second biggest recipient of Ukrainian refugees.

Then we can deduct another 3m who now live in territory which is annexed by Russia.

Then we can deduct an unknown number of war dead and injured which is probably at least 0.5m. The actual figures are not disclosed although I note that western media seem to have a great fix on Russian casualties. I’m sure there’s no propaganda there.

Anyway, that 44m is now at most 30m. I’d say that’s a demographic crisis.

@Evanescent (who I think blocks me for saying things he doesn’t want to hear) - 2023 showed that Ukraine is unable to make any meaningful military gains at all, despite all the western arms, training, intel and prep which went into the ‘spring offensive’.

FXPO share price is plumbing the depths because slowly the markets are catching up with reality. Ukraine will not win on the battlefield. Until either the Zelensky regime is replaced or the US calls time on this proxy war, the war will continue and FXPO will remain, at best, constrained with no immediate prospects of improvement.

The Q4 production is disappointing.

As concerning for me is that workforce resource is going to become increasingly problematic as Ukraine continues to widen its drafting criteria. People resource is an increasingly scarce commodity in Ukraine as the military requires ever more as the war continues.

This brings me back to the point I’ve made numerous times before. Continuing the war in the hope of magically expelling Russia from all occupied territory including Crimea is a vain pursuit which costs lives. It’s not just FXPO which needs a negotiated settlement, it’s people.

Wars end in negotiations based on battlefield realities. That’s the way this war will also end.

Presume the Spectator is also now infected with @Evanescent’s ‘scum Russian bots’.

Kiev’s glorious victory is obviously inevitable and just around the corner, presumably when the next wonder weapon, the obsolete F16s, take to the skies.

Russia will be vanquished and Ordinary Russians will rise up and demand to be led by a pro west politician who makes them a woke vassal state of the US.

Glory to Ukraine and Sunak and Biden. I love this messianic evidence and realism feee way of thinking. It makes investing in FXPO so much easier.

Ukraine is faltering and Poland isn’t going to ‘step in’ because it would have no NATO protection. In fact, as has been made crystal clear many times by the West, no western soldiers will publicly be sent to fight in Ukraine. Poland does have a good army, but no appetite to send them to die in Ukraine.

As many have said, the West is fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian. That will ensure the weakening of the Russian army, although at the unspoken expense of the destruction of Ukraine In its current form, and the death and injury of countless Ukrainians.

It takes a very perverse logic to wrap this up as a morally virtuous policy. It’s a classic exercise of great power politics by the US.

FXPO will remain under valued and under threat until there are peace negotiations. Endless war is a recipe for the continued destruction of shareholder value.

Well, I’m sure others will make up their own minds as to who is naïve.

@Loungelizard - you gleefully repeat the maximalist aims of Ukraine regaining all its territory and Putin being de-posed but seem blissfully ignorant of actual realities.

How is any of this supposed to happen? You mention Poland and Lithuania thrashing Russia, which I find to be an quite extraordinary statement. I mean sure, if you want Poland to invade Belarus and Kaliningrad, widening the war, leading to the risk of a wider European conflagration with possible nuclear risks. What do you think this would do to the wider European economy?

The reality of course is that Europe will fight Russia to the last Ukrainian. But at some point Ukraine’s military will collapse, and it will do so long before Russia. That’s just a function of simple population sizes.

In my opinion Zelensky will be spirited away to his mansion in Miami just before this point. Because you’re right that the West needs an off ramp and it won’t be the Russian capitulation you’ve been misled about by idiotic western media and elites.

By all means people can carry on dreaming about glorious Ukrainian victory. But objectively it’s not happened and it won’t happen. Russia is not isolated from the world, its population is not turning against Putin, it’s capacity to wage war is multiples higher than Ukraine’s. That’s the reality. It’s not what we want to hear but it is the truth.