Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist 02 Mar 2022
Image Carlos Latuff
White supremacy is at the heart of US war propaganda. The exhortation to "stand with Ukraine" is no exception to this rule.
By now everyone knows that Ukraine’s flag is blue and yellow. It is impossible to miss as the Empire State Building in New York, the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, and the Eiffel Tower in Paris have all been bathed in those colors. Nearly every city and town across the United States has followed suit and politicians ranging from local legislators to members of congress shout “Stand with Ukraine!” at every opportunity.
Yet it must be pointed out that those blue and yellow motifs and pleas for solidarity are all about white supremacy. Ukraine is upheld as a bastion of “civilization” which is supposed to put it off limits for war and suffering. The quiet part is now being spoken out loud. We are told that Ukrainians are more deserving of concern because they are Europeans.
Ukraine’s deputy chief prosecutor said as much in a BBC interview. “It is very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed…" He wasn’t alone in his assessment. An NBC reporter was asked why Poland was willing to admit Ukrainians even as it turned away other refugees. "Just to put it bluntly, these are not refugees from Syria, these are refugees from neighboring Ukraine. That, quite frankly, is part of it. These are Christians, they are white, they're ... um... very similar to the people that live in Poland.”
CBS followed suit, "This isn't a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan who has seen conflict rage for decades. This is a relatively civilized, relatively European - I have to choose those words carefully - city where you wouldn't expect that or hope that it was going to happen."
The narrative that only white people deserve peace and security is all the more shameful because the global south suffers from war and privation as a direct result of US/NATO actions. It is NATO that destroyed the nation of Libya, NATO which attempted to do the same in Syria, NATO that occupied Afghanistan, NATO which wages war across African countries with US, French and British troops deployed across the continent. The white world causes suffering and then says that the people of the global south are “uncivilized” with no rights that need to be respected.
A Watson Institute of Brown University study showed that more than 37 million people in North Africa, Western and Central Asia, and the Horn of Africa have been displaced by the US and its allies since 2001. The humanitarian disasters begun years ago are ongoing, as refugees use the Mediterranean and even the US border with Mexico as points of escape. After experiencing wars of aggression these nations are then subjected to punishment as the United States steals Afghanistan’s assets and keeps Syria under the thumb of Caesar Sanctions. These thefts cause more suffering and even death as nations are robbed of the ability to care for their people. Who is civilized and who is not?
Ukraine has been pushed to the forefront of American thought in order to defend the imperialist foreign policy which led to the current conflict with Russia. If the blue eyed nation is suffering it is because of US and NATO arrogance and aggression. Ukraine’s current situation is a direct result of the 2014 coup engineered by the US and its EU partners. An elected president was dispatched and a civil war began that has killed some 14,000 people. Ukraine is a US colony with a puppet government now under military attack. Ukrainians are themselves refugees as they flee to neighboring Poland, Romania, Slovakia and other countries. It is the supposedly advanced, democratic, and supposedly civilized who have created their problems.
Yet once again bare faced racism is evident. African migrants and students in Ukraine were prohibited from boarding trains and buses that could take them to safety. A group of Jamaican students was forced to walk 20 kilometers when they were forced off of a bus enroute to Poland. Africans and Jamaicans live and study all over the world because the US and Europe underdevelop their nations through a variety of means. Yet Ukrainians and Poles didn’t see people in need of help. They determined that the non-blondes were not deserving of assistance.
Ironically, it is the white supremacist underpinnings of US/NATO foreign policy which has created all of Ukraine’s suffering. The need to dominate, to “contain” Russia and its ally China is not playing out the way they had hoped but the Ukrainians be damned. The MinskII agreement which was unanimously approved in the United Nations Security Council was a roadmap to peace. Ukraine should be a neutral nation but that is the exact opposite of what its lords and masters in Washington want. The good faith negotiations that could resolve the crisis are a non-starter because NATO is a very dishonest broker.
The corporate media have joined the state in an extraordinary effort to create war propaganda. They deliberately tug at heartstrings and demand solidarity with Ukraine because the truth is very unpalatable. Instead of standing with Ukraine, Americans should stand with humanity across the world. If they did they would be better able to understand why there are wars in Europe or anywhere else.
https://www.blackagendareport.com/ukrai ... ign-policy
Talk about the 'elephant in the room'...How soon before we start hearing about 'Asiatic Hordes'?
***********************************************************
Vladimir Putin and Joseph Biden in Geneva, Switzerland DENIS BALIBOUSE/POOL/AFP via Getty
The end of the cold war was the beginning of the America unipolar moment. But the "end of history" was followed by contradiction and arrogance
which brought the conflict in Ukraine into being.
The current crisis in the Ukraine will inevitably eventuate as that rarity: a turning point in world history. This involves a number of main points:
First, it clarifies that the preceding epoch, the Cold War, presumably ending in December 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union, will likely be seen in the future as a catastrophic success for U.S. imperialism.
A success to be sure—at least in the short term—as it inaugurated the rapidly receding era of “unipolarity” and the heyday of the “sole remaining superpower.”
But to attain this success, Washington executed a trio of critical blunders: there was the turbo-charging of religious zealotry that led initially to the alliance in Afghanistan in the 1980s that contributed to the demise of the Soviet Union—then the attack on New York and Washington in 2001 and the ignominious ouster of the U.S. from that same South Asian nation in August 2021. Whatever the case, it is evident that we have not heard the last of the zealots, especially since they receive covert and overt aid from certain friendly regimes, Saudi Arabia not least.
Then, when Washington forced the dissolution of the USSR, this allowed Moscow to cease subsidizing Moldova, Turkestan, Georgia and formerly socialist regimes in the vicinity. This allowed Russia to husband its resources leading to what Stanford scholar, Kathryn Stoner terms in her latest tome: “Russia Resurrected,” a self-explanatory title that speaks to the development of hypersonic missiles and an agricultural superpower and a nation that can turn geopolitical tides in Syria among other sites. Imperialism failed to acknowledge that Russia had outgrown the sellout years of Boris Yeltsin and adamantly refused to adapt accordingly. NATO should have collapsed in 1991 when the USSR did but instead extended its remit to Libya, along with destroying the former Yugoslavia and devastating Afghanistan.
And, above all—and ironically—the intervention in the Ukraine occurred as we were marking the 50th anniversary of yet another turning point: the U.S.-China entente of February 1972 on an anti-Soviet basis with the payoff to Beijing being massive direct foreign investment creating a juggernaut that bids fair to leave imperialism sprawling in the dust.
Indeed, arguably, it is the specter of China that drove imperialist strategy toward Russia. That is, confronting Beijing directly means a faceoff with Tesla and Apple and Microsoft and Starbucks and KFC and a slew of U.S. giants, whereas weakening China’s major partner—Russia—is more palatable, at least for the time being.
That is why, as I write, it is not only regime change in Kiev that is at issue: imperialism seeks regime change in Moscow, with all the dangers attendant with regard to toppling a nuclear power.
The ostensible issue --Ukraine joining the U.S. dominated NATO—would mean a rise in the stock price of Raytheon (former home of Pentagon chief, Lloyd Austin) and Lockheed Martin, as member states are required to spend more on advanced weaponry, which inevitably comes from these corporations.
With Germany pledging to re-arm, we also witness the shortsightedness of world imperialism, which refuses to learn the lessons of the 20th century, especially the catastrophe of world war ending with the uncovering of industrial funeral pyres in 1945. Not only Washington but London, Brussels and Paris should be shuddering right now.
Of course, since Germany will now be buying natural gas from Texas—and not Russia—this will satiate Washington: for the time being.
France is particularly culpable since Paris blathers and bloviates constantly about “strategic autonomy” but is so dependent upon Washington for aerial and satellite assets to keep a lid on its neo-empire in Africa, that it is paralyzed.
Brussels, Paris and Berlin apparently are unfamiliar with the recent memoir by sacked National Security honcho for Trump—John Bolton—who admitted that the 45th U.S. President saw the European Union as second only to China as an antagonist.
And this crisis in Ukraine will reinvigorate EU vassalage to U.S. imperialism.
However, the underlying contradiction of this crisis is historical: a glance at the map reveals that much of European territory is Russian and this huge nation still has a population twice the size of that of the Number 2: Germany.
In sum, while Western Europe was getting fat from the plunder of the Americas and Africa in recent centuries, Russia was moving eastward—often at the expense of China—and establishing its window on the Pacific in 1860: Vladivostok.
Thus, Western Europe was becoming a global power at the same time that it did not necessarily rule its home continent. Two centuries ago Napoleon sought to resolve this anomalous contradiction by invading Russia—and being soundly defeated. A few decades later in the 1850s there was the Crimean War as, again, France, Britain and Turkey ganged up on Russia.
Then there was the final self-inflicted wound when in 1905 London financed the Japanese attack on Russia, which backfired spectacularly in that it wounded white supremacy grievously as Du Bois, Ho Chi Minh, Sun Yat Sen and Nehru all recognized. But it also led to the transformative Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 that inaugurated the General Crisis of Capitalism itself—which has yet to dissipate—then was punctuated by the Tokyo payback in 1941-1942, when the British Empire was devastated when its cash cows of Hong Kong and Singapore were seized by Japan.
A few decades later, as noted, Washington repeated the blunder of building up Asia to confront Moscow when in 1972 the entente with China was brokered.
Russia is the equivalent of the “whale” in Melville’s “Moby Dick”, the pursuit of which drives the North Atlantic bloc into crazed self-destruction.
Of course, Russia was not standing still as it sought to weaken European colonialism in Africa when in the 1890s it armed Abyssinian/Ethiopia to the teeth as it defeated Italian invaders. Then under Soviet rule doing the same in Southern Africa from the 1960s to Southern Africa independence culminating in 1994 with the election of Nelson Mandela.
Of course, the Black community—or at least many among us—are culpable in that since the “Compromise of 1954,” anti-Jim Crow concessions in return for the ditching of our internationalists led by Paul Robeson, ill prepared us to understand global affairs or even capitalize upon an often favorable international situation.
Then there is the U.S. left which during the Cold War, assured us that once the alleged albatross of the Soviet Union disappeared, radicals and progressives would be liberated: instead, we see the emergence of right wing populists in Eastern Europe (Poland and Hungary particularly), not to mention Washington. In France, the presidential election is today characterized by a surfeit of these types with the once mighty Communists and Socialists on the back foot.
There are many lessons to draw from today’s crisis but among them must be not only a better understanding of history and the international correlation of forces—but also stronger collectives by which we can take advantage of propitious moments.
https://www.blackagendareport.com/crisi ... ern-europe
***************************************
“Cuba advocates a solution that guarantees the security and sovereignty of all”
Statement from Cuba’s Revolutionary Government
Author: Cubaminrex | internet@granma.cu
february 28, 2022 09:02:30
The U.S. determination to continue NATO’s progressive expansion toward the Russian Federation’s borders has brought about a scenario with implications of unpredictable scope, which could have been avoided.
United States’ and NATO’s military moves toward regions adjacent to the Russian Federation in recent months are well known, and were preceded by the delivery of modern weapons to Ukraine, which together constitute a military siege.
It is impossible to make a rigorous and honest examination of the current situation in Ukraine, without carefully assessing the Russian Federation’s just demands of the United States and NATO, and the factors that have led to the use of force and non-observance of legal principles and international norms which Cuba strongly supports and, are, particularly for small countries, an essential resource in resisting hegemony, abuse of power and injustice.
Cuba is a country that defends International Law and is committed to the Charter of the United Nations. Cuba will always defend peace and oppose the use of force, and threats to do so, against any state.
We deeply regret the loss of innocent civilian lives in Ukraine. The Cuban people have had and continue to have a very close relationship with the Ukrainian people.
History will hold the United States accountable for the consequences of an increasingly offensive military doctrine beyond NATO’s borders, which threatens international peace, security and stability.
Our concern has grown worse with NATO’s recent decision to activate, for the first time, its Response Force.
Ignoring the well-founded claims made by the Russian Federation concerning security guarantees for decades and assuming that Russia would remain defenseless in the face of a direct threat to its national security was a mistake. Russia has the right to defend itself. Peace cannot be achieved by mounting sieges or encircling states.
The draft resolution on the situation in Ukraine not adopted by the UN Security Council February 25, which will be submitted to the General Assembly, was not intended as a genuine contribution to resolve the current crisis.
On the contrary, it is an unbalanced text, which does not take into account the legitimate concerns of all parties involved. It does not acknowledge either the responsibility of those who instigated or took aggressive action that led to the escalation of this conflict.
We call for a serious, constructive and realistic diplomatic solution to the current crisis in Europe, via peaceful means, ensuring the security and sovereignty of all, as well as regional and international peace, stability and security.
Cuba rejects hypocrisy and double standards. It should be recalled that in 1999 the United States and NATO launched a major attack on Yugoslavia, a European country that was fragmented with a high cost in human lives, in pursuit of geopolitical objectives, disregarding the UN Charter.
The United States and several of its allies have used force on many occasions. They have invaded sovereign states to bring about regime change and interfere in the internal affairs of other nations that do not submit to their interests of domination, defending their territorial integrity and independence.
They are also responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians, which they label as “collateral damage,” millions of displaced persons and widespread destruction across our planet in their wars of plunder.
Havana, February 26, 2022
https://en.granma.cu/cuba/2022-02-28/cu ... nty-of-all
************************************************
Ukraine Threatens Belarus to Launch Preemptive Attack
Alexander Lukashenko, President of Belarus. March. 1, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/@jatirado
Published 1 March 2022 (16 hours 38 minutes ago)
A senior official disclosed that it only takes President Volodymyr Zelensky's consent to launch a Ukrainian attack on Belarus.
On Tuesday, Alexey Danilov, Secretary of Ukraine's Security Council, noted that Kiev is considering launching preemptive missile strikes on Belarusian territory.
Ukraine's threat follows claims stating that Belarusian troops support Russian military operations against Kiev. However, Minsk has repeatedly refused any participation in the conflict. Moreover, there is no evidence proving the veracity of such claims.
In this sense, Alexander Lukashenko, President of Belarus, remarked that the country's troops had not abandoned their permanent bases and installations. The president also referred to the Ukrainian attack threat, expressing that Belarus is prepared to defend itself in case of being attacked.
Lukashenko stressed that the Belarusian military is ready to respond. The president said that all the units would be mobilized within 2-3 days if necessary as required during wartime.
The spike in tensions in the Russia-Ukraine crisis surged last week with Russia launching a full-scale military operation in Ukraine intended for the demilitarization and denazification of the country, as stated by the Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The special operation searched for restraining Kiev from continuing shelling the newly recognized Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics. However, Kiev has denied the attack was perpetrated to recapture the regions, qualifying it as an unprovoked attack.
The conflict dates back to years ago, with the coup in 2014, which toppled the democratically elected government in Kiev. Since then, this region has suffered long years of conflict. Minsk agreements in 2014-15 ended active combat, but a lack of strictness in its implementation led to continuing hostilities in the region.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Ukr ... -0010.html
********************************************
Russia reports military deaths during operation in Ukraine
The Russian Defense maintains that there are more victims among the Ukrainian military than among the Russians. | Photo: Sputnik
Published 27 February 2022
The Ukrainian army massively uses banned ammunition containing phosphorus in the suburbs of Kiev, occupied by Russian military units.
The Russian Defense Ministry offered information this Sunday on the casualties reported among Russian troops participating in the special military operation taking place in Ukraine.
The report highlighted that the number of Russian casualties and wounded is lower than those inflicted on the Ukrainian side, which includes soldiers, paramilitaries and nationalists, but no specific figures were provided.
Russia began a military operation on February 24 at the request of the self-proclaimed people's republics of Lugansk and Donetsk, which asked the Kremlin to intervene in the face of the atrocities committed by Ukraine against its population in the Donbas region.
Since the movement of troops towards Ukrainian territory, the troops have advanced in different land and sea positions in Ukraine, while Moscow and Kien converged this Sunday to start negotiations in the Gomez province in Belarus.
For his part, the spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, Igor Konashénkov, stressed "the Russian military show courage and heroism during the performance of the combat tasks of the special military operation. Unfortunately, there are dead and wounded comrades."
"But our losses are many times less than the eliminated nationalists. And the losses among servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine," he said.
He also insisted that the Russian military "will continue to treat with dignity" the Ukrainian troops who laid down their arms, adding that the Russian forces know how few captured Russian military are treated by the Ukrainian Nazis.
"All the faces, voices, telephone numbers, their coordinates, IP addresses, as well as the correspondence of all the Nazis involved in the torture of our comrades are recorded and identified," he reiterated.
On the war front, he stressed that the Russian military destroyed a total of 1,067 facilities of Ukraine's military infrastructure, including 27 checkpoints and communication posts, 38 anti-aircraft defense complexes S-300, Buk M-1 and Osa .
In addition, 254 tanks and other armored fighting vehicles, 31 aircraft on the ground, 46 multiple rocket launch systems, 103 field artillery weapons and mortars, and 164 units of military automobile equipment were destroyed.
Russian troops enter Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine
On this Sunday, the Russian authorities reported the entry of their troops into Kharkov, the second most important city in Ukraine, after Kiebv, the capital, where fighting is also taking place.
The president of the Kharkov Regional State Administration, Oleg Sineguboc, reported this Sunday that the Russian troops managed to break through until they reached the center of Kharkov, the second largest city in Ukraine.
"There has been an advance of Russian enemy vehicles in Kharkov, including the central part of the city," Sineguboc explained, asking citizens to stay home.
Kharkov, with a population of 1.4 million, is the main city in northeastern Ukraine and is close to the border with Russia and the pro-Russian separatist-controlled territories of Donetsk and Luhansk.
https://www.telesurtv.net/news/rusia-mi ... -0015.html
Google Translator
Most people don't know or have forgotten that at the beginning of the Donbass revolt that Kharkov was about to join in when it was prioritized by the Nazis and the anti-fascist movement was brutally crushed. As with Odessa, the Russian cities which were transferred to the Ukraine SSR found that the conditions which made that acceptable, the unity of the USSR, no longer applied.
********************************************
"Kozyrevshchina" is a synonym for betrayal
colonelcassad
March 2, 8:24 am
A source in the Foreign Ministry said ( https://tass.ru/politika/13924439 ) that the team is thinking about the proposal ( https://twitter.com/andreivkozyrev/stat ... 6900958210 ) of Andrei Kozyrev to surrender.
“Recommending diplomats to surrender and betray, Kozyrev knows what he is talking about from his own experience. Colleagues have always been ashamed that they worked with Kozyrev. No one has ever understood why such a person was appointed head of the Foreign Ministry. solemn event at the Foreign Ministry, where the country's foreign ministers - Primakov, Ivanov and Lavrov were present.
For 20 years of the existence of the Diplomat's Day, the staff and department have never congratulated Kozyrev on the holiday, because his name is considered a household name in the Foreign Ministry and is associated with the surrender of positions. It entered the diplomatic lexicon as "Kozyrevshchina" and is synonymous with betrayal.
Kozyrev claims he was proud of the colleagues he worked with. I just forgot to add that they did not reciprocate. Yevgeny Maksimovich Primakov received the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in critical condition after Kozyrev, only thanks to a team of professionals it was possible to keep the department from complete collapse.
Kozyrev is also the author of the catchphrase "Russia has no national interests." When he said it in response to a question from former US President Richard Nixon, specifying whether the United States would have advice on building our course, the American president was dumbfounded and only shook his head. The preface to Kozyrev's epistolary writings is written by the former US ambassador, the notorious Russophobe Michael McFaul. Kozyrev has been living abroad for a long time. And just as long has been conducting anti-Russian subversive work. Andrei Vladimirovich has already received his award, interest has run up on his thirty pieces of silver."
https://t.me/MID_Russia/18763 - zinc
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7 ... tml#cutid1
Google Translator
*************************************
RUSSIA AND THE NEW MONEY ROUTE
Franco Vielma
2 Mar 2022 , 6:44 am .
The financial suffocation of Russia could generate the strengthening of an economy without the dollar (Photo: AFP)
According to JP Morgan and Citigroup, the measures against Russia could weaken the hegemony of the dollar.
The Chinese yuan jumped from 35th place in 2010 to fifth in trade in the world in 2021.
In a recent article , the geopolitical analyst specializing in Asia and the Middle East Pepe Escobar, entitled "Follow the money: how Russia will bypass western economic warfare" (in Spanish "Follow the money: how Russia will avoid western economic warfare"), some enlightening statements by the American economist Michael Hudson where the impact and projection of the coercive measures applied against Russia are analyzed.
Hudson's approach is very simple, but reckless. In his opinion, the SWIFT-like systems developed by Russia and China, which will receive an unexpected boost from the "sanctions" on Russia, will help to reconfigure the Eurasian financial system.
As is known, the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union (EU) and Canada have applied a resounding package of financial measures against Russia as part of its military operation in Ukraine.
Russia's "partial" disconnection from SWIFT (Society for World Interbank Financial Telecommunication) will create serious limitations on many financial operations to and from Russia.
However, the Russian Federation created the SPFS (Financial Message Transfer System), its own SWIFT, currently in its infancy, precisely because of the "sanctions" against it in 2014. While China has already created and developed the CIPS (acronym for China International Payments System), also analogous to SWIFT and designed to dodge financial pressures.
Both instruments would be key for Russia in its difficult obligation to avoid the measures against it. However, with the new momentum that they could have now, they join accumulated events typical of the configuration of a financial and market system, not dependent on the US dollar.
THE NEW SILK ROAD: THE NEW MONEY ROUTE
The extremely aggressive financial actions of the West against Russia are not unrelated to the rise of the Eurasian economy, which today is making a real counterweight to the Atlanticist axis.
If we understand it through geo-commercial referents, China's relationship with the Eurasian bloc has been that of a new very vigorous milestone of trade, infrastructure and financing through the Belt and Road Initiative project, the deepest developing link between the East and West.
According to the reading of events and their possibilities, we could now begin to outline a new solid route of money, through transfers of capital in dollars and rubles from Russia to China, through the use of the mechanisms of both countries, which only strengthens the framework of possibilities that today are developing in the commercial infrastructures in Eurasia.
Hudson has no doubt that the Russo-Chinese system will be implemented. "The Global South will seek to unite," he says, moving to the new system.
Hudson's statement is not the only one in that direction. There is a concern shared by the American financial giants JP Morgan and Citigroup, according to a publication by Bloomberg :
"Removing Russia from the global SWIFT system, which handles 42 million messages a day and serves as a lifeline for some of the world's largest financial institutions, could backfire, driving up inflation, pushing Russia closer to China and shielding transactions. from scrutiny by the west. It could also encourage the development of a SWIFT alternative that could eventually damage the supremacy of the US dollar."
A 2021 publication by Susanne Barton for Bloomberg reports that the runaway printing of dollars by the US Federal Reserve over the past two years to artificially finance its budget and deal with the pandemic not only generated devaluation and inflation, it also caused that the dollar lost ground as a reserve currency.
"While more than 60% of the world's foreign exchange reserves are denominated in dollars, as they have been for more than two decades, dollar holdings fell to the lowest level since 1996," says Barton.
"HSBC Holdings Plc sees the yuan increasingly influencing weekly price changes in the pound and commodity-linked currencies, while strategists at Societe Generale SA see it weighing on risk sentiment," it adds.
The currency is now the fifth most used currency for global payments, accounting for around 2% of transactions, according to data from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, which handles cross-border payment messages for more than 11,000 financial institutions in 200 countries. In 2010, the yuan ranked 35th in trades registered on SWIFT. Notice the difference.
China's trend in the use of its currency is rising and it has been leaving prudent but solid records. According to its authorities, the country will "constantly and prudently" promote the internationalization of the yuan and continue to develop overseas yuan markets.
Last year the Asian country reported that settlements of cross-border operations in the local currency amounted to 28.39 trillion yuan ($4.39 trillion) in 2020, 44.3% more than the previous year, the People's Bank said. of China in its report on the internationalization of the yuan in 2021.
Yuan transactions accounted for 46.2% of total cross-border settlements, hitting a record high, the Chinese central bank said. This trend could only increase according to the volume of operations that can be done with and from Russia, using the yuan as currency.
The use of the yuan and the ruble in operations between these countries has been increasing. In 2021, the percentage of use of the respective national currencies in commercial transactions between Moscow and Beijing reached 25% in 2020, Russian Ambassador to China Andrei Denisov announced during a press conference.
(Photo: CCTV-E)
"The share of national currencies in our relations with China is constantly increasing. According to the assessment of our Chinese partners, for the first eight or nine months of 2020 the proportion reached about a quarter of those transactions: between 24% and 25%. This is great progress," the diplomat declared, adding that in the years 2013-2014 this figure was around 2-3%.
In fact, the trend of the yuan is considered one of the key elements for Russia's survival in this new cycle of disfigurement of its economy. The country already accumulated 13% of its reserves in yuan, as it had been preparing for these scenarios since 2014.
In another order of ideas, the role of cryptocurrencies in shaping the world economy is not a small thing either. The cryptocurrency market reached its peak in the year 2021, with a market capitalization of approximately 2.4 trillion US dollars. Market capitalization is calculated by multiplying the total number of coins in circulation by the unit price.
The use of cryptocurrencies as a means of saving and payment is strongly linked to the exchange of these in local currencies. Although they have a use between individuals, this is now more frequent between companies, since the operations are subject to minimum commissions for carrying out the exchanges.
This has made cryptos an alternative competitive factor not only to the dollar, but also to the international financial system and its conventional routes.
The sum of the new bifurcations and financial paths, in the long run, have been manufacturing a new money route that could receive a boost from the "sanctions" against Russia.
A factor for the West in the long term is the result of the armed conflict in Ukraine, its prolongation and the lengthening of measures against Russia. Let us remember that the Federation is still dealing with measures against it since 2014 for the recovery of the Crimean peninsula, hence the lapse of the new measures against it are unspeakable, but undoubtedly long-term.
To the extent that the West prolongs the suffocation over Russia, more countries and companies will be forced to resort to intermediary instruments from Eurasia, favoring an entire economic fabric of a new type, without the use of SWIFT and, in many cases, without the use of the dollar.
Basically, what would change is the new center of gravity of finance and the world economy.
https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/ru ... del-dinero
Google Translator
********************************************
CP of Greece, Dimitris Koutsoumbas: Socialism is the real progress. No to imperialist war! Greece’s involvement must stop immediately!
3/1/22 3:48 PM
Greece, Communist Party of Greece Ar En Es Ru Europe Communist and workers' parties
Dimitris Koutsoumbas: Socialism is the real progress. No to imperialist war! Greece’s involvement must stop immediately!
On 27/2/22, the CC of the KKE organized an event in the city of Lamia in honour of the 80 years of the Greek People’s Liberation Army (ELAS), which was the military wing of the National Liberation Front (EAM). Both EAM and ELAS were founded following a decision of the KKE and fought against the fascist triple foreign occupation (German, Italian, and Bulgarian) of Greece during the imperialist Second World War.
The event took place in Lamia, the native city of Aris Velouchiotis, leader of ELAS and cadre of the KKE.
The event included a speech by Dimitris Koutsoumbas, GS of the CC of the KKE, and a concert. A march to the statue of Aris Velouchiotis was held right after.
During his speech, the GS of the CC of the KKE referred to the imperialist war in Ukraine, highlighting the following:
“Here, from the city of Lamia, at this great celebration for the 80th anniversary of the foundation of ELAS, we are shouting out loud: No to imperialist war! Any involvement of Greece must stop immediately! The bases must be immediately closed down!
This is the crucial issue for our people these moments when the sirens of war are being heard and Russia’s intervention and invasion of Ukraine is underway.
The sirens of war are heard for the second time on European soil, 30 years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the overthrow of socialism. The peoples futilely seek the “peaceful” and “safe” world that they were promised back then!
The only thing we are seeing now is permanent insecurity, poverty, and wars.
Europe now counts two wars. Let us remember Yugoslavia and the heroic pages written by our people’s struggle as well.
The military conflict in Ukraine is the result of the sharpening of competition between two warring camps. It is focused on spheres of influence, market shares, raw materials, energy plans, and routes of transport. This competition can no longer be resolved by diplomatic–political means and fragile compromises.
On the one hand, there is the USA, NATO, and the EU which installed and support the reactionary puppet government of Kyiv, the paramilitary mechanisms, and the fascist groups in Ukraine. The USA–NATO for years have been promoting their positions by expanding NATO, aiming at the military encirclement of Russia.
On the other hand, there is today’s Russia, which is promoting its own plans for the capitalist unification of the former USSR countries and territories.
War, dear comrades and friends, is the continuation of the same policy with other, violent means. War, as well as the death and destruction it causes, inevitably stems from capitalist–imperialist competition.
We cannot forget that the peoples of Russia and Ukraine had been living in friendship and thriving in peace for decades under socialism. No matter how much anti-communist poison is spread by various mouthpieces of propaganda, they cannot erase this fact from people’s memory. Historical truth and reality cannot be erased.
On the contrary, each passing day proves that the way out can be found only in the conflict with the unjust capitalist system that gives rise to poverty and war. This is the alternative path that those and all peoples must follow today.
Greece is not innocent of the crime! It is actively participating in this imperialist competition aiming at the geostrategic enhancement of the Greek ruling class, that is its participation in the looting and the redistribution of the pie taking place through new crimes against the peoples.
The Greek governments of ND, PASOK, and SYRIZA, one after the other have backed NATO decisions and plans regarding its expansion, the encirclement of Russia, and other plans against the peoples. They initiated the installation of new US–NATO bases in our country, such as that of Alexandroupolis, which has become a hub for the transfer and deployment of military forces to Eastern Europe.
Thus, our country becomes a perpetrator against other peoples but at the same time, it can become easy prey. Greece is the one in danger and not the USA, which is situated on the other side of the world.
Greece and our people can become a target of retaliation, as Russia has already warned about Alexandroupolis and other military bases.
Greece and our people are bleeding due to high prices, rising fuel prices, energy poverty, and armaments.
Greece and our people will suffer a heavy toll as, among other things, the Turkish bourgeoisie’s appetite for its unacceptable claims on the Aegean for the revision of agreements and the dispute of borders as well as the Cyprus Issue has increased.
The response from the workers’–people’s and our country’s perspective lies in an independent line, away from all bourgeois and imperialist plans.
In the face of the new crime, the clear answer can only be one:
*No to imperialist war.
*Only the peoples can chart their course and choose their own path, away from the self-serving interests of the bourgeois classes and their governments, which are solely responsible for the massacre they are leading us to.
*Greece’s involvement must stop immediately.
*All military bases in our country must be immediately closed down.
*We strengthen the struggle for disengagement from imperialist unions, with the people masters in our land.”
D. Koutsoumbas also referred to the heroic activity of ELAS and the lessons that the KKE has drawn from its history, which are particularly useful for today. He concluded his speech by saying that “It is not progress for the people to live on crumbs so that a handful of parasites earn profit. Progress means that people move forward and improve their lives. Progress means that the new generations live better than the previous ones. Which policy can guarantee this? Only a government that will be the executive body of the working-class and popular majority and power can truly do that. Only the KKE talks about this government. Only the KKE is waging a struggle. And it is determined to take this struggle to the very end. It is this working-class and popular majority that will be at the forefront and build the new society, socialism! Socialism is the real progress today!”.
http://solidnet.org/article/CP-of-Greec ... mediately/
It is possible to recognize the legitimate grievances of the people of Donbass, the capitalist nature of the current Russian government and the hegemony of the US and it's NATO vassals simultaneously but it seems difficult for some...Comparing 'Russian imperialism' to US imperialist hegemony is comparing a house cat to a Siberian Tiger. Yeah, they're both cats...
I do not rule out that someone wanted Russia to get bogged down in a man-made, Western-created conflict in Ukraine.
