darkcalling

(archive link)

Yes they have to some great degree. Russia is not in danger of collapsing or being unable to trade but the difficulties are mounting as the Chinese continue to be averse to directly standing up to US sanctions.

This article is quite good and goes into a bit of the details but I'm not sure how I feel about the conclusion that all is alright and this is doomed not to succeed and that this is a sign of decline which the author hastily inserts at the end without any real supporting evidence compared to the rest of the article. It feels not exactly supported, like putting a rosy spin on bad news.

The resilience of the Russian economy in the face of harsh Western sanctions sent those cheering the rise of multipolarity into victory laps. And it has been a huge embarrassment to the West. But Russia’s burgeoning problem settling payments with China demonstrates that this resilience isn’t without setbacks.

This past June, the US Treasury put the local banks of countries that trade with Russia in the crosshairs for secondary sanctions. The legal foundation for measures against companies or individuals found trading with sanctioned entities was originally implemented back in December, but it was in June that Washington expanded this framework and sent strong signals that this time it was serious. These threats were felt particularly acutely in China, Russia’s largest trade partner.

What happened and when It started with the big state-owned Chinese banks, which began shying away from dealing with Russia at the beginning of the year. But there were always smaller, regional banks, which were seen as less exposed to the Western financial system, which would take their place. For a while, it seemed these banks would carry the day. But now even these institutions have followed suit.

By the summer, Chinese banks were rejecting and returning about 80% of Russian payments made in Chinese yuan, Kommersant reported in late July. An article in Izvestia from mid-August claimed that things were even worse: 98% of Chinese banks were refusing to take direct yuan payments from Russia.

The result has been delayed and disrupted payments for many Russian importers. A Reuters report from last week discusses how transactions with Russia are being shut down “en masse” and billions of yuan worth of payments are being held up, according to a government source.

“At that moment, all cross-border payments to China stopped. We found solutions, but it took about three weeks, which is a very long time, trade volumes fell drastically during that time,” the government source told Reuters.

[...]

Meanwhile, the tighter restrictions have led to a drying up of yuan liquidity in the Russian market. In other words, it has become harder and more expensive for Russian companies needing yuan to get ahold of the currency. Given how much of Russia’s trade now takes place in the Chinese currency, this is certainly an issue.

As a result of the squeeze, more and more firms are having to turn on a regular basis to a channel previously used as a last resort – expensive swaps with the Russian central bank (whereby entities post rubles as collateral in exchange for yuan). At the start of September, Russian banks raised a record 35 billion yuan through this facility, well up from the 20 billion daily average in August and 10 billion average in June. Essentially, the Bank of Russia is being forced to fill the gap left by Chinese private banks operating in Russia.

The Russian central bank will almost certainly have to play a larger role, and exporters will probably also step in to provide liquidity. But there is no quick and easy fix.

In making sense of these issues, first of all, it is important to note that this problem is well understood in Russia and is freely discussed, including at the highest levels of government and in the media. No façade is being erected; there is no attempt to suppress this story. It’s been on the front pages of the Russian financial press.

It also bears keeping in mind that Russia-China trade is not exactly collapsing. In fact, despite the problems, turnover actually grew overall by 1.6% in the first half of this year. More importantly, the experience of the last few years has shown that whatever headwinds emerge end up being a strong driver of change.

Central banks are proposed as a solution including CBDCs (central bank backed digital currencies) but the question then is would the US sanction central banks of partner countries like China and India?

In China's case without knowing more or being an expert in these financial systems I'm tempted to say yes because they have it out for China anyways and really want to create friction between China and Russia by forcing China to choose either the US or Russia and if they choose Russia they use that as evidence and ammo to ramp up decoupling and sanctions on China and if they choose the US then it weakens Russia to encourage a US push to finish them off before taking on China or at least they hope pushes Russia away from helping China when the US takes them on.

Original source (RT):

West Jerusalem has been sidelining diplomacy in favor of a “military solution” to the Gaza war, Moscow said

Israel has been using peace negotiations to mislead the international community and hide its true intentions in Gaza, Russia’s deputy envoy to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky has said.

Speaking at the UN Security Council on Wednesday, Polyansky accused West Jerusalem of “stubbornly seeking a military solution to the problem, while attempting to ignore the decisions of the UNSC.”

“The Security Council is united in the understanding that the rescue of the remaining Israelis and foreigners by military methods is impossible and that there is no alternative to negotiations. The Israeli society understands and recognizes this as well,” the diplomat said.

“However, the Israeli leadership, unfortunately, continues to treat the negotiations only as a ‘smokescreen’ designed to distract the international community.”

(archive link)

I have excerpted some of the most interesting parts, to read the full article which is worthwhile please follow the link.

As allies continue to pressure Tehran, the Islamic Republic is wondering who will benefit from a possible war in the region

By Farhad Ibragimov – expert, lecturer at the Faculty of Economics of RUDN University, visiting lecturer at the Institute of Social Sciences of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.

The assassination of Ismail Haniyeh [Hamas leadership and chief negotiator] in Tehran at the end of July has dramatically escalated the tension between Iran and Israel, which have been on the brink of a full-scale war for several decades.

In 2024, Iran faced a series of major challenges: a large terrorist attack in Kerman at the grave of General Qasem Soleimani; an attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus which killed 11 diplomats and two high-ranking Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) generals; the tragic deaths of President Ibrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in a helicopter crash; and finally, the assassination of the leader of the radical Hamas movement Ismail Haniyeh in the center of Tehran.

All of this forces Iran’s political leadership to take tougher and more radical measures in order to prove both to its own people and to the world that this is not the way to “talk” with Iran.

Apparently Iran is delaying taking any action and frustration is growing with its allies such as Hezbollah and other militias.

On the one hand, by its ominous silence, Iran has forced Israel to resort to extreme security measures and close its airspace. Tehran believes that the expectation of a response is also part of the punishment, because tension in Israel continues to rise.

On the other hand, the White House has reassured itself, insisting that through intermediaries, it has convinced Tehran to abandon the idea of attacking Israel. In its usual manner full of pathos, the Biden administration has declared that Iran would face serious consequences if it decided to strike Israel. In fact, Washington does not benefit from the escalation of the conflict – in light of the upcoming US elections, it does not want to give Donald Trump a chance to accuse the Democrats of having failed to prevent an attack on their main ally in the region. Therefore, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan are ready to negotiate with anyone, even Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in order to prevent a scenario that would be unfavorable for them.

But as we know this won't bring an end to the genocide in Gaza, the peace talks are a smoke-screen and short of the US somehow using leverage on isn'treali intelligence to force them to coup Netanyahu there will be no peace this year that involves good terms that Hamas finds acceptable and which give any breathing room to the Palestinian people.

A few days ago, the Kuwaiti edition of Al-Jarida reported that Iran’s relations with its allies have deteriorated because of Israel. The media notes that Tehran has provoked the anger of Hezbollah by saying that it’s necessary to be patient about avenging Israel for the murders of Ismail Haniyeh and Fuad Shukr – one of the senior military officials of Hezbollah. At a meeting of the representatives of pro-Iranian forces in Tehran, representatives of the IRGC demanded their allies demonstrate restraint regarding Israel – at least while negotiations on a ceasefire in Gaza are ongoing.

The disagreement turned into an argument, and some delegates allegedly left the meeting quite angry. The meeting was attended by representatives of Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Yemen’s Houthis (the Ansar Allah movement), and some smaller Iraqi groups.

Hezbollah believes that the only way to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza and peace in the entire region is to use force against Israel. They believe it is time to open all fronts, directly attack Israel and confront anyone who decides to defend it, including US troops and the Arab countries. Tehran’s allies speak in favor of large-scale and long-term military operations aimed at destroying Israeli infrastructure, security systems, military and economic facilities, as well as Israel’s civilian and residential areas. In their opinion, this will force Israelis to live in shelters for a long time, and they will experience the same challenges as the residents of Gaza.

Moreover, representatives of Hezbollah stated that the current situation cannot be ignored, and that they can independently decide to attack Israel without coordinating their actions with Iran. Hezbollah also said that after the Israeli attack on the southern suburbs of Beirut, it should attack Haifa and Tel Aviv. Moreover, Hezbollah is considering expanding the goals of its possible military operation and attacking other Israeli cities, even if this leads to casualties among civilians. Yemen’s Houthis supported Hezbollah’s position.

A source in the IRGC said that the Iranian side made it clear that such a scenario is quite risky and will only serve the interests of Israel.

He noted that the Iranians offered to negotiate with Israel on the principle of “an eye for an eye” – i.e., if one of the leaders of the Axis of Resistance is killed, an Israeli official must be killed in return. To this, Hamas representatives who were at the meeting in Tehran allegedly replied, “If Iran is ready to accept the consequences of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in exchange for the murder of Haniyeh, then Hamas will support this policy, but if Iran’s goal is to kill lower-level figures, the movement will not agree with this.”

What does everyone think?

Should Iran continue avoiding escalation that may draw in the US?

Is this foolish and likely to embolden Netanyahu who after all is desperately trying to escalate in order to extend his own rule at home and avoid an election or consequences for his failure to get the hostages back that has made him unpopular even within the settler-colonial occupation?

Can a death blow be delivered to the occupation without Iran and other nations suffering serious devastation from US retaliation?

(archive link)

The US government has confiscated an airplane reportedly used by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, claiming it violates Washington’s sanctions against Caracas, CNN reported on Monday.

The US has charged Maduro with drug trafficking and refused to recognize his victory in the last two Venezuelan presidential elections.

“Seizing the foreign head of state’s plane is unheard-of for criminal matters. We’re sending a clear message here that no one is above the law, no one is above the reach of US sanctions,” an unnamed Washington official told CNN, which first reported the story on Monday.

According to CNN, the plane is worth around $13 million and was seized in cooperation with Dominican authorities.

Instead of "protecting human rights," the unilateral sanctions have severely undermined the rights of Uygurs, particularly young Uygur women.

The U.S. sanctions had nothing to do with the alleged human rights concerns. The purpose, he said, is to crush Xinjiang's economy, cause mass unemployment and undermine social stability, said an expert who grew up in Xinjiang.

This article goes over the human cost of the US's illegal, coercive sanctions on China and how they fall primarily on women and set back women's rights in Xinjiang. This is probably in keeping with what the US wants as they want to foster a traditionalist, conservative, reactionary culture and religious extremist movement in Xinjiang to attack China with, to destabilize the region and China as a whole and of course to grow into a large separatist movement as part of the goal of balkanizing China.

(archive link)

Russia often loses all contact with local residents forcibly taken by Kiev troops, the Foreign Ministry has said

Ukrainian troops occupying part of Russia’s Kursk Region have been abducting and sexually abusing local residents, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s special mission to investigate alleged Ukrainian war crimes, Rodion Miroshnik, has claimed.

In an interview with RIA Novosti on Thursday, Miroshnik confirmed numerous earlier reports alleging that Ukrainian forces – including foreign mercenaries – have engaged in numerous atrocities against the civilian population since the start of the large-scale incursion on August 6.

“We have evidence of sexual violence committed by both foreign mercenaries and Ukrainian radicals,” he stated, suggesting that the Ukrainian leadership had deployed “all of its scum” to Kursk Region in an apparent effort to get them out of the country and “dispose” of them. Other apparent crimes by Kiev’s forces include abductions, Miroshnik claimed. “We have data that Ukrainian militants are taking action to kidnap people. They are snatching civilians and taking them away to an unknown location. We often lose contact with them. Where are they taken? To Ukrainian territory, or to secret prisons?” he asked.

(archive link)

The US and its CIA-controlled “soft power” arm utilized the encrypted social media app Telegram to foment riots and protest movements against foreign governments it deems undesirable, former Trump administration official and free speech activist Mike Benz has said.

These statements were made during an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson on his show Wednesday. Benz, a State Department official under the Trump administration, now runs the free speech watchdog Foundation for Freedom Online.

[...]

The US has championed free speech globally for decades, “in large part” because it allows the country to build resistance and political or paramilitary movements “in countries where the US State Department seeks political control,” the former official said. Durov’s end-to-end encrypted social media app Telegram has been instrumental in this effort, Benz claimed.

The reason “26 US-government-funded NGOs” condemned Russia for attempting to ban Telegram in 2018 was that “the US State Department was using Telegram,” utilizing its encryption and local popularity “to foment protests and riots within Russia – just as they did in Belarus, Iran, Hong Kong, and attempted to do in China,” the former State Department official stated. The app’s encryption is a powerful means of evading state control over media and allowing “US-funded political groups or dissidents to garner tens of thousands of supporters with relative impunity,” he added.

https://www.rt.com/news/603033-telegram-founder-paris-arrest/

The founder has been arrested in Paris on charges of abetting criminals by making a censorship resistant app. He in the past claimed the west (NSA/CIA/etc) asked him to put a backdoor in his app and for what little it's worth he claims he refused.

Now with him in their custody, in their clutches, where they can sentence him to a brutal prison sentence for the rest of his life he may like many people be willing to cut them a deal on a backdoor so he can save his own life. Such a deal may not be publicly apparent and may even be carefully disguised and hidden behind a public legal drama that is fiction.

I don't think any immediate emergency action is warranted but I would encourage those using it to evaluate what this means for their continued usage and the threat it presents to them say 6 months from now.

We have to wait and see, he could be cleared and leave quickly, he could face a trial which may or may not say anything about him allowing western intelligence to compromise it. As they could try and hide the fact he cut a deal behind a public apparent defeat by his lawyers if they want to keep it under wraps to better utilize such access against Russians for example who are heavy, heavy users of the app and it could present a trove of intelligence to say nothing of abilities to compromise top Russian officials were they to get in bed with the eyes agreement agencies.

Point is they snatched him at the airport when he landed and it can't be anything but politically motivated.

At the very least I expect them to force him to submit to public censorship of "disinformation" which means the Russian perspective. Oh they'll bust a few pedophiles and drug rings as well but it's mainly about controlling yet another app that's available in the west and sticking a knife in Russia's back.

Here's something interesting from Ars:

As Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, noted tonight, "A popular Russian channel says that Telegram is also used by Russian forces to communicate, and that if Western intelligence services gain access to it, they could obtain sensitive information about the Russian military." https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/08/shocker-french-make-surprise-arrest-of-telegram-founder-at-paris-airport/

This once again shows the need for tech sovereignty among anti-imperialist nations. It's not enough to use something that's not directly controlled by the enemy because the enemy will find ways to pressure, blackmail, coerce those third parties into doing their bidding anyways. It's important for these countries to have platforms safely headquartered within one of these other friend nations that are resistant to just one person being arrested, where even someone with extraordinary access wouldn't be a threat because of security service involvement.

(archive link)

Ukrainian forces that have occupied part of Kursk Region have committed atrocities against civilians while using them as human shields, the commander of the Akhmat Special Forces from Russia's Chechen Republic has claimed.

In a post on Telegram on Monday, Apty Alaudinov recounted an episode in the border town of Sudzha, where he said Ukrainian troops had entered a residential house with children inside.

“In this building, they settled down on the ground floor… and chased children and teachers upstairs to use them as a shield,” he said, adding that this practice is widespread. He claimed that first-person footage filmed by the Ukrainians had ended up in Russian hands, and showed the brutality of Kiev’s forces.

“I received a huge number of photos in which I saw civilians who were simply shot at point-blank [range], in the head and from the back. All these civilians, unfortunately, died,” he said, expressing his condolences and vowing revenge.

As fighting continues on the border, videos have surfaced on social media showing Ukrainian troops grabbing people off the street, blindfolding them, and pushing them into trucks.

(archive link)

A false flag operation using radioactive warheads is reportedly aimed at spent nuclear fuel

Ukrainian forces have begun preparations to target nuclear waste storage sites at a Russian power plant with radioactive warheads and to then blame Moscow, according to intelligence received by Russia.

“Sources on the other side report that the [Ukrainians] are preparing a nuclear false flag – an explosion of a dirty atomic bomb,” military journalist Marat Khairullin said Friday on his Telegram channel. “They plan to strike the storage sites of spent nuclear fuel of a nuclear power plant.”

The special warheads intended for the attack have already been delivered to the Vostochny Mining and Processing plant in Zhovti Vody, in Ukraine’s Dnepropetrovsk Region, according to Khairullin.

As possible targets of the attack, Khairullin indicated either the Zaporozhye NPP in Energodar or the Kursk NPP in Kurchatov, noting that the Ukrainian government and its Western backers are “desperate and willing to try anything.”

A security official in the Russian Military Administration of Kharkov Region corroborated Khairullin’s claim to RIA Novosti on Friday. The attack is intended to use radioactive warheads to target spent fuel storage sites at a nuclear power plant, and the ammunition has already been delivered to Zhovti Vody.

Kiev’s intention is to accuse Moscow of a false flag so it could justify using nuclear weapons against Ukraine, the security official said. The Ukrainian government has received orders from its Western backers to “escalate as much as possible,” he added.

According to the security official, the intelligence came from Ukrainian prisoners of war.

Sergey Lebedev, introduced as leader of the Nikolaev Region underground, who said the planned attack would be carried out with NATO weapons, with the consent of the West.

Lebedev pointed out that a large number of Western journalists have already arrived in the Sumy Region near Kursk, as well as the Ukrainian-controlled part of Zaporozhye, suggesting that this is part of Kiev’s preparations for the nuclear false flag.

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) acts as the US government's "white gloves" and has long engaged in subverting state power in other countries, meddling in their internal affairs, inciting division and confrontation, misleading public opinion, and conducting ideological infiltration, all under the pretext of promoting democracy, according to a report released on Friday by the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Rest of the story at the link. Full report link again is:

https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xw/wjbxw/202408/t20240809_11468618.html

(They use mainstream foreign press sources only, no grayzone or similar likely to be easily dismissed stuff)

By Tarik Cyril Amar, a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory

(original non-archive link)

On 6 August, a court in Berlin sentenced a young woman called Ava Moayeri to a fine of €600 for shouting “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free.” One of Moayeri’s lawyers, Alexander Gorski, deplored this as “a rather dark day for freedom of expression in Germany.”

He’s right, even if his comment is an all too understated response to a scandalous miscarriage of justice. Indeed, it is hard to answer the question of what is wrong with this sentence, because, quite literally, everything is. Judge Birgit Balzer’s reasoning, for one thing, was embarrassingly shoddy, irresponsibly misinformed, and ethically and legally misguided, about which more below.

Beyond Balzer’s failure to do justice to the important issue she had to adjudicate, the case and sentence also represent a larger problem, in Germany and beyond: the West’s perverse pampering of Israel. One form taken by this pampering is to allow the Israeli regime to abuse the memory of the Holocaust, a genocide targeting Jews, to claim impunity for its own crimes against humanity, including genocide targeting Palestinians.

Balzer, too, explicitly invoked the Holocaust to justify her sentence. Yet Moayeri, the daughter of Communists from Iran, made clear that she has nothing to do with either glorifying violence or antisemitism. On the contrary, her concern is with showing solidarity to the Palestinian victims of Israeli violence and standing up for their rights. Balzer felt entitled to disregard this perfectly plausible position, attribute entirely unproven motives to Moayeri, and, on that fundamentally flawed basis, punish her. In effect, it is clear that Moayeri’s right to peaceful protest and a perfectly legitimate political position was suppressed to protect Israeli narratives from any challenge. And these narratives, in turn, are used to shield Israel from accountability for its crimes, and thus they also withhold help from Israel’s victims.

The whole article is worth reading and perhaps bookmarking as the author takes apart the legal case against this activist for Palestine showing how it doesn't even fit the standards of German law.