This is a bit of a humiliation of Putin – the so-called Credit Default Swap (CDS) for Ukraine is now LOWER than Russia’s CDS.

A CDS is the price to insure against losing money on a government bond in the event of a government default.

In other words, investors now see it as MORE likely that Russia will default on its sovereign debt than Ukraine will.

Below, the white line is Ukraine’s CDS, while the orange line is the Russian CDS. The green graph at the bottom shows the difference between the two.

It’s a lot of buts and ifs, but it’s probably a pretty good indication of the situation for the two countries.

On the one hand, Russia can look forward to tough economic sanctions from the West for many years to come – unless there is “regime change” in Russia.

On the other hand, Ukraine can probably very much look forward to help from the West when peace comes at some point.