Daily commentary-2022.5.18

Covid

Beijing is expanding lockdown area. However, overall new confirmed covid cases are declining in China. This would be a positive sginal for later easing of lockdown in China.

Russian-Ukraine 

The direct aim of Russia fight against Ukraine is to safeguard its homeland security from NATO as well as expand its international influence. However, after 90 days of military action, Russia failed to conquer Ukraine. What make it worse is that Russia has spend for more than $10 billion on this war and lost about $100 bilion from sanctions. Having such big losses, it is really hard for Putin to backoff from the military action. So we may see long term military conflict between Russia and Ukraine.