At 00:00 Beijing time on the 13th, US President Joe Biden spoke on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the first direct communication between Biden and Putin since December last year.

Two hours later, the White House announced that the call between Biden and Putin ended and lasted more than an hour. The two sides discussed Russia's escalating military buildup near the Ukrainian border. Biden made it "clear" to Putin that the United States was open to the outside world, but was also prepared for other situations. "if Russia invades Ukraine, the United States and its allies will respond decisively, costing Russia quickly and seriously. "Biden said.

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Marco Macron discussed the crisis in Ukraine in a telephone call. The Kremlin said the phone call lasted for an hour and 40 minutes. Mr. Putin hosted Mr. Macron in the Kremlin this week, the first summit with Western leaders since Russia began massing troops near Ukraine last year.

Two US officials told the media that about 150 US soldiers training Ukrainian troops in Ukraine would leave the country as the threat of Russia's "invasion" of Ukraine increased, Reuters reported last night. Reported that the decision was made after the US State Department ordered some staff of the US Embassy in Ukraine to leave Ukraine. The two officials said it was not clear where the US troops would be redeployed.

A Russian warship forced a US submarine to leave the territorial waters of the Russian Federation in the Kuril Islands, where the Russian navy is conducting exercises, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday, according to the Interfax news agency.

With regard to the violation of the borders of the Russian Federation by US naval submarines, the Russian Defense Ministry summoned the military attache of the US Embassy in Moscow. The Russian Defense Ministry said that Russia reserves the right to use any means to ensure the security of its territorial waters. The provocative actions of US submarines pose a threat to Russia's security, and such incidents must be prevented in the future.

The United States withdrew diplomatic personnel, Russia optimized the staffing of diplomatic agencies in Ukraine, and many countries advised citizens to leave Ukraine.

Yesterday evening, the US Embassy in Ukraine tweeted that the US State Department ordered the embassy's non-emergency US staff to leave today.

Western intelligence officials have warned that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is increasingly imminent and that the US will evacuate its embassy in Kiev, the Associated Press reported yesterday. U.S. officials say the State Department plans to announce early Saturday that most U.S. staff at the embassy in Kiev will be asked to leave the country ahead of the worrying Russian invasion. The State Council declined to comment.

Earlier, US President Joe Biden warned Americans in Ukraine to leave immediately, saying that "things may soon go crazy" in Ukraine and that "when the United States and Russia start to exchange fire, it will be a world war."

In addition, the Pentagon announced on Friday that it would send 3000 more combat troops to Poland to join the 1700 troops already assembled there, demonstrating the United States' commitment to NATO allies worried about the prospect of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Jack Sullivan, national security adviser to President Joe Biden, also issued a public warning that Russian President Vladimir Putin can now order an invasion of Ukraine at any time.

Russian satellite news agency quoted sources as saying that Russian diplomats began to leave Ukraine one after another. "according to Ukrainian citizens, Russian diplomats and consular officers in Ukraine began to return to Russia one after another," the source said. This is especially illustrated by the difficulty of booking consulates and embassies. "

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Zakharovaa said that the Russian Foreign Ministry decided to optimize the staffing of Russian diplomatic agencies in Ukraine to a certain extent. Zakharovaa also stressed that the Russian Embassy and Consulate in Ukraine will continue to perform its basic functions.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said reports that Russia had begun to evacuate its diplomats in Ukraine were false and used as an excuse for the West to withdraw its diplomats.

Zakharovaa also said that in early January this year, the children of Russian diplomats in Ukraine returned home to visit their grandparents, while the New York Times and other Western media took the opportunity to spread rumors about the withdrawal of Russian diplomats from Ukraine. The aim is to provide a "cover" for the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and other Western countries to evacuate diplomats and their families from their embassies in Ukraine. Israel also announced plans to withdraw its diplomatic personnel from Ukraine yesterday.

The British government has advised its citizens to leave Ukraine as soon as possible, and the European Union says sanctions against Russia will cover the financial and energy sectors, according to CCTV news.

On February 11, local time, the Chinese Embassy in Ukraine issued a message reminding Chinese citizens in Ukraine to strengthen the prevention of COVID-19 's epidemic and pay close attention to the local situation. The embassy said that recently, the epidemic in Ukraine has become increasingly serious, and there have been a number of confirmed cases in which Chinese citizens in Ukraine were infected with novel coronavirus or returned home. At the same time, the current tense situation between Ukraine and Russia has aroused various concerns, and various statements have emerged, which are not consistent with each other.

Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs advised Japanese citizens in Ukraine to leave Ukraine immediately, according to Japan's Kyodo news agency. Reported that the Japanese Foreign Ministry has raised the travel warning for Ukraine to the highest level, urging all Japanese nationals to leave the country and avoid going there. Ukraine is "more and more likely to deteriorate rapidly," the statement said.

In addition, yesterday the Spanish Foreign Ministry recommended the temporary evacuation of Spanish citizens in Ukraine; the Swedish government called on citizens to leave Ukraine. The Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and overseas Chinese issued a travel warning for Ukraine, urging its citizens to avoid traveling to Ukraine in the near future, and called on Jordanian citizens who are still in Ukraine to contact the Jordanian Cultural Office in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, or the Jordanian Embassy in Turkey in Ankara, Turkey, as soon as possible.

The price of oil is as high as $100 a barrel! Precious metals are also "ignited"

In terms of oil prices, news of the deterioration of the situation between Russia and Ukraine came before the close of oil prices on Saturday. Fearing that Russian supplies would be sanctioned, US Oil WTI quickly stood above 94 US dollars per barrel, rising from 2 per cent to a maximum of 5.3 per cent in a day, the highest level since September 30, 2014. Cloth oil rose above 95 US dollars per barrel for the first time in 2014, up 4.6%, and the daily high of 95.65 US dollars per barrel was the highest since 2014.

As of the close, WTI March crude oil futures closed up 3.58%, up 0.9% for the week and up for eight consecutive weeks. Brent April crude oil futures closed up 3.31% at $94.44 a barrel, up 1.3% for the week.

From a fundamental point of view, is the current high price of crude oil close to 95 US dollars per barrel sustainable?

Wang Haozheng, an analyst at Yangtze River Futures, said that the rise in oil prices is not only driven by increased geo-risk, but also inseparable from the support of supply and demand. At present, the trend of ultra-seasonal destocking in the oil market has not been reversed, so high oil prices are expected to continue.

According to Wang Haozheng, in terms of demand, it is currently in a state of gradual rise in the post-epidemic period. Although the epidemic situation in Europe and the United States is still serious, some countries represented by Britain and France have lifted epidemic prevention measures one after another, the increase in economic activities and residents' travel has further pushed up the consumption of refined oil products, and the price gap between refined oil cracking has remained high compared with the same period last year.

On the supply side, production growth in the United States is slow, and the main global surplus capacity is concentrated in OPEC+. Due to the lack of upstream investment in some member countries, it is difficult to increase production, and the overall progress of OPEC+ production is not as planned, resulting in a continuous decline in global oil stocks.

Li Jie, senior researcher of Jianxin Futures Energy and Chemical Industry, told Futures Daily that at present, the main operating logic of the crude oil market is the resonance of low inventory + supply interruption + geographical premium, which is still relatively strong in the short term. Supported by the recovery of demand and the control of supply by OPEC+, global inventories continue to decline in 2021. IEA data show that global oil inventories have declined by as much as 1.66 million barrels per day in 2021, with a cumulative reduction of nearly 600 million barrels per day for the whole year, which has fallen to the level of early 2018, among which OECD oil inventory is much lower than the five-year average.

On the supply side, the upstream investment of some small and medium-sized oil-producing countries in OPEC+ is insufficient, the crude oil production capacity is difficult to grow rapidly, and the actual output continues to be lower than the output quota of OPEC+. As of December, the average monthly production gap reached 550000 barrels per day, or about 130 million barrels per day, exacerbating the supply tension in the market.

Tensions between Russia and Ukraine, Russia, the world's third-largest oil producer, the market fears of further deterioration of the situation may be a supply crunch, supporting the market bullish sentiment.

How will the situation in Russia and Ukraine affect the trend of oil prices? Apart from the situation in Russia and Ukraine, what other information need to be paid attention to in the future?

Wang Haozheng believes that the biggest impact of the situation in Ukraine on oil prices is the possibility of European and American sanctions on Russia's oil and gas industry. Russia accounts for more than 10 per cent of the world's oil output, and sanctions on the industry would exacerbate current supply shortages. At the same time, we also need to pay attention to the trend of Iran's nuclear negotiations.

According to recent remarks by the Russian envoy and a US State Department official, if the Iranian nuclear talks are reached in February, they are expected to take effect in April and Iranian supplies are expected to pick up; if they cannot be reached in February, they may not be reached for some time. At present, Iran's crude oil production is lower than that of 1.3 million barrels per day before the US sanctions, and the recovery will greatly improve the supply shortage in the oil market.

On Friday night, the situation in Russia and Ukraine further escalated, and international oil prices rose sharply. The progress of the situation still needs to be watched, but we should be wary of the risk of a sharp correction in oil prices caused by the less-than-expected conflict. The negotiation process of the Iran nuclear agreement accelerated after the Spring Festival oil price hit a record high, after several positive signals came from the market. On February 5, there was news that the US government had lifted some sanctions to return to the Iran nuclear agreement, and then the United States denied it.

On Feb. 7, CCTV reported that the United States said it was possible to reach an agreement with Iran on Iran's nuclear negotiations, provided that the agreement must be reached as soon as possible in the next few weeks. Iran has 1.3 million barrels of spare capacity per day based on current production. We believe that the risk of accelerating the return of Iranian supply to the market in the face of record oil prices can not be ignored, and an interim agreement may be reached to ease the supply shortage. "said Li Jie.

In terms of precious metals, on Friday night, spot gold was originally traded at $1826 / oz, basically flat and close to the two-week high set on Thursday. The news of the deterioration of the situation in Russia and Ukraine after midday in US stocks triggered a rapid rise in risk aversion. Spot gold stood at $1860 / oz, surging $20 / oz in the short term, and the intraday increase widened to 1.9%, the highest in nearly three months since November 19 last year.

By the close, COMEX gold futures closed up 0.18 per cent at $1840.80 an ounce, up for five days and 1.8 per cent for the week, the biggest weekly percentage gain in three months and up more than 1 per cent last week. Silver futures rose 3% throughout the week.

Some analysts pointed out that the market bets on the Fed's aggressive interest rate hike led to the strengthening of US dollar and US bond yields, further limiting the rise of gold prices, but gold prices, as a hedge against inflation, still have room to rise.

In this regard, Soochow futures analyst Li Gaofeng believes that gold can fight inflation, but also affected by the Fed's tightening monetary policy. Us non-farm data in January were better than expected, and data in November and December last year were revised sharply, hourly wage growth in January was also higher than expected, and inflation was a 40-year high in January.

At present, the market is worried that there may be a spiral of wages and inflation in the United States in the 1970s; the market is not sure whether the Fed's tightening policies will be effective in curbing inflation. As a result, precious metal prices are expected to be affected alternately, and there is no clear direction.

Cao Xiaojun, a precious metals analyst at Huaan Futures, said gold has the function of fighting inflation, but it is not the only hedge against inflation. Other assets, such as the dollar, commodities, inflation protected bonds (TIPS), as well as equity investments, can also hedge against inflation risk. Combined with the situation and prospects after the COVID-19 epidemic, at present, the process of economic recovery and geopolitical conflicts may be more noteworthy factors affecting the price of gold.

How will the situation in Russia and Ukraine affect the trend of precious metals?

Ji Ming, a futures analyst at the League of Nations, believes thatAt present, there are three factors affecting the trend of precious metals: geopolitical policy, inflation hedging and Fed policy.

Geopolitically, the United States seems happy to see "Russia invading Ukraine". But it is unlikely that the war will explode, just like the crisis in Cuba. Inflation is the main factor supporting the safe-haven rebound of precious metals. The real factor that can affect the medium-and long-term trend of precious metals is the trend of the dollar. Judging from the Fed's statement, the tightening of monthly bond purchases will end in the middle of the year, and interest rate increases are expected to be carried out in March and carried out seven times this year. In this way, the long-term trend of a stronger dollar is difficult to change.

"on the whole, geopolitical conflicts and inflation are short-and medium-term and uncertain factors. The Fed's long-term policy will not change, so we speculate that precious metals, led by gold, have a short-term upward momentum due to risk aversion, but the long-term tone is mainly down, and gold prices may peak or fall around March. "said Ji Ming.

Geopolitical risk will only affect the trend of precious metals in the short term, not in the long term. "Li Gaofeng said.