I detect Elvira Nabiulina's hand in this and in the news in the post immediately below.*
From Tass via The World News Monitor (Business Information for Sustainable Development), March 22:
Moscow and Caracas are developing steps to connecting Venezuela to the Mir payment system and using the respective card in Venezuela, Russia's Ambassador to the republic Sergey Melik-Bagdasarov said in an interview with TASS.
"Connecting Venezuela to the Mir payment system and the opportunity to use this card here would be useful for servicing the travel industry," the diplomat said,...
The two countries were already moving in this direction, with Russia supplying natural gas via the Northern Sea Route and the Power of Siberia pipeline and with the Chinese leasing 2.5 million acres of Siberia as farmland, something Russia agreed to not just for the cash income but to delay the de facto redrawing of the map:
New York Times
So the two giants were already moving closer in their economic ties.
But the incessant Russia, Russia, Russia of the last six years as well as the western response to the Russian re-taking of Crimea have certainly accelerated the process, to the point the two countries have individually developed responses to a curtailment of access to the SWIFT payment system which, when combined, will create an international alternative to SWIFT.[*]
You can lay the blame for this acceleration squarely on the neocons and other war-mongers, the so-called intelligence community and the folks who pitched Russia, Russia, Russia for the last six years. I'm not kidding and I'm not being hyperbolic this is a huge, huge issue and is so stupid you almost have to wonder if it isn't stupid at all but part of a concerted effort to raise China and diminish the West....
....And the Russians also have a secret weapon: Elvira Nabiullina, the head of the Russian central bank....
