From Russian state news agency RIA, December 15:
Ушаков назвал разговор Путина и Си Цзиньпина беседой двух друзей
Google Translate seems to give a fair approximation:
"Assistant to the President Ushakov: the conversation between Putin and Xi Jinping was a conversation between two friends...."
Some of the highlights:
....However,the most consequential part of the Putin-Xi talk was probably the one devoted to economic stuff. The Kremlin needs China's commitment to stand by Moscow should the West employ massive economic sanctions against Russiam. /4
— Artyom Lukin (@ArtyomLukin) December 15, 2021
According to Ushakov, Putin and Xi have agreed "to set up an independent financial infrastructure to service trade between Russia and China." This financial infrastructure should be "invulnerable" to pressure from thrid parties. /5
— Artyom Lukin (@ArtyomLukin) December 15, 2021
....MORE (THREAD)
If interested see also this post for yours truly riffin' away into the cyberian night:
December 7
That was the headline on his December 6 Washington Post OpEd.
The question, of course, is how are you going to enforce it?
Reuters reported earlier today: "West could cut Russia from SWIFT, sanction Nord Stream, Latvia says"
Do they think Russia hasn't thought of this possibility? Of course they did, a decade ago.
We're dealing with a nation of chess players. They've gamed out four possibilities, sixteen countermoves and 64 counter-countermoves. Meanwhile the American military have been working on their pronouns.
And the Russians also have a secret weapon: Elvira Nabiullina, the head of the Russian central bank.
Imagine having to do a high wire act, allowing the rouble to fall, keeping rates up to counteract the inflationary tendency that introduces, trying to account for the huge asset flows in the underground/oligarch economy while all the while Putin is yelling at you from the sidelines.
She is very good at what she does.She has already considered and put on the back-burner a proposal to use the Orthodox Church as an internal payment system, It's there, just in case, you know, the electronic stuff goes down....
....MORE
