This must be bad news for NATO nations that have complained recently about their weapons’ supplies running low; some even complained that the Ukrainian military is being careless with the weapons and systems they are receiving. Images of western equipment destroyed or abandoned in the battle field has raised concerns.
Media reports are now revealing that Iran’s top security official Ali Shamkhani and Russian President Vladimir Putin had extensive talks on de-dollarization of trade between the two sanction-hit countries during Shamkhani’s visit to Moscow earlier this year.
Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency covered the report
after it was released late on Wednesday and said that the hours-long,
off-the-record meeting between Shamkhani and Putin early February was mostly
focused on initiatives to offset the impacts of Western sanctions on Iran and
Russia, including efforts to ditch the US dollar from bilateral trade.
According to media reports, the CIA chief complained US was blindsided by Saudi outreach to Syria and Iran. Similar reports appeared in the Wall Street Journal. According to the newspaper, William Burns told Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that the United States is shocked by Riyadh's rapprochement with Iran and Syria, which are still under the influence of Western sanctions.
On March 10, Tehran and Riyadh agreed to restore diplomatic relations and reopen embassies within two months. Representatives of the two countries held talks in Beijing for several days, following which a trilateral statement was prepared.
The American magazine "The National Interest" reported that "the American president said that the ruble will turn to rubble, and the French finance minister said that the Russian economy will collapse, but despite these statements, the sanctions did not result in any major tsunami of regime change."
And it reported that “the movement to (Eurasian) resource-backed currencies was accelerated by the United States’ recognition of the trend and its attempt to reverse it, ostensibly through the war in Ukraine,” noting that “the revolution in the economy is not Bitcoin, but rather resource-based currencies.”
She explained, “With the Russians capping the price of their gold, Russian investors were stuck with an undervalued ruble, forcing it to appreciate against the dollar. In the past six months, the ruble has strengthened steadily. Then Putin added the double whammy that buyers of Oil can be bought with rubles or gold.
According to her, "If they buy oil with gold, they actually get a discount on oil, which leads to increased pressure on the supply of gold, which raises the price."
Therefore, "the West's commitment to burning the ruble backfired, and the strengthening of oil prices had a reinforcing effect on the ruble. As a result, in the land of paper, Russia and China are now able to control gold and oil prices," she says.
"The world of the dollar reserve system is coming to an end, as domestic funds were artificially inflated by the West in order to buy the assets of the East cheaply, and now it is payback time for the East," The National Interest confirmed.
The magazine concluded: "The dollar is still the reserve currency. This seismic change will not happen overnight, but the seeds were sown," stressing that "the current banking crisis is a symptom of the weakness of the monetary system, and what is happening in the West is the gradual death of paper currencies."
The West’s unlimited military support to Ukraine, its unbalanced Middle East relations, its ambiguous stance on the status of Taiwan, and its failure to honor its nuclear deal with Iran are propelling China to become a global leader. These three news stories should make the case for the role China will play in this decade.
_____________
This editorial in a Chinese media outlet close to the ruling class of China provides the answer.
Finland joins NATO; Europe's overall security landscape more 'precarious'With a Finnish flag rising first time outside the NATO headquarters, the Nordic nation officially became NATO's 31st member country at a meeting of the US-led bloc's foreign ministers, including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on Tuesday in Brussels, a historic shift away from the Nordic nation's traditional policy of neutrality, which Chinese experts believe now pushes Finland to the forefront against Russia and may spur Moscow to boost its nuclear deployment, thus making Europe's overall security landscape even more precarious.
___________
During a long overseas trip to the United States, the
Taiwanese president delivered a consistent and blunt message about countering
Chinese threats: Taiwan needs the United States to be supportive, the newspaper
reported.
But while she was garnering American support, her
predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou, was working on a very different agenda, and is
currently on a tour of China, the first former president to ever make such a
visit, according to the newspaper.
She noted that the symbolism of Ma Ying-jeou's visit to
China was "amazing" and stood in stark contrast to Tsai's travels.
"Strongly echoing the rhetoric used by Chinese
President Xi Jinping, Ma Jiu invoked the memory of China's past humiliation at
the hands of foreign invaders, during a visit last week to the mausoleum of Sun
Yat-sen, the founder of the Republic of China who overthrew the last emperor in
1911," she added.
Speaking of a delegation of Taiwanese youths he was
accompanying, Ma Jiu said that they "will strive peacefully to revitalize
the relationship with China, and sincerely hope that the two sides of the
Strait will make joint efforts to achieve peace and prevent war."
According to the newspaper, the conflicting flights indicate
that the question of Taiwan's belonging in the world may reach a point of
crisis, amid the most intense hostility between China and the United States.
Earlier in the day, the Chinese Maritime Safety
Administration in Fujian announced that military authorities had begun
patrolling the Taiwan Strait, following reports of a meeting between Taiwan's
President and US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
And Tsai arrived, on Tuesday evening, in Los Angeles, USA,
to hold this meeting, after a diplomatic tour in Central America.
McCarthy had planned to follow the example of former House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat who visited Taiwan last August, angering
China.
Yesterday, Chinese diplomacy saw that the meeting between
the two parties would "cause more damage" to relations between
Beijing and Washington.
_______
French President Emmanuel Macron said today, Wednesday, at
the start of a three-day state visit to China that Beijing can "play a
major role" in finding a "path leading to peace" in Ukraine.
Macron told the French community in the Chinese capital:
"China has proposed a peace plan, thus showing a will to take
responsibility and try to forge a path leading to peace."
Macron added, "This war has trampled many of the
principles of the United Nations Charter, which we, as members of the Security
Council, must firmly defend."
He continued, "I see that defending it also means
progressing together, and trying to find a path that leads to peace."
Last February, China proposed its plan for peace in Ukraine,
which consists of 12 clauses that include calls for a cease-fire, respect for
the legitimate interests of all countries in the field of security, and a
settlement of the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.
It is noteworthy that French President Emmanuel Macron
arrived, today, Wednesday, in China for a 3-day visit, according to what was
announced by the Elysee Palace, on his first trip to this country since 2019.
Macron will hold talks, tomorrow, Thursday, with his Chinese
counterpart, Xi Jinping, in which European Commission President Ursula von der
Leyen will participate in part, and will move to Canton in southern China on
Friday.
Before leaving for China, the French President held a
telephone conversation with his American counterpart, Joe Biden. During which
they expressed their hope that "China will engage in joint efforts to
accelerate an end to the war in Ukraine and establish a sustainable
peace," according to French officials.
___________________
Western media reported on Monday that investigators in Germany suspect that the yacht, previously linked to the Nord Stream attack, was used to divert attention from the true perpetrators of the sabotage.
The Washington Post, quoting informed sources, indicated that “a number of officials in the United States and Europe share Germany’s suspicions that a crew of six could plant hundreds of kilograms of explosives to blow up pipelines.”
The investigation is examining the version that the Andromeda yacht may not have been the only one used in the attack, or even served as a distraction.
Although a German investigation found traces of "military" explosives found on a table in the cabin of the yacht to match those used in the pipeline, some officials suspect that experienced saboteurs left behind such clear evidence of guilt. The publication says that they do not rule out that someone is deliberately trying to lead the investigation down the wrong path.
The newspaper reported that some Western officials are discussing the possible involvement of Warsaw and Kiev in the attack on the "Nord Stream".
Based on Germany's initial findings, officials are discussing behind the scenes the possible involvement of the Polish or Ukrainian government in the attack.
Some have said Poland may have had a motive, given that it has been one of the fiercest critics of the Nord Stream project since its inception in the late 1990s, the journalist reported.
Russian authorities dispute, and so does China based on Chinese media report, the Western claims of an act of sabotage that did not involve any state actor, including Ukraine and asked UNSC to mandate an independent investigation. Western states blocked the UNSC from doing so.
The key to success of US sanctions is that the US dollar is used in trade between nations; the more countries trade in other currencies the less effective the sanctions regimes will be.
The role of the UN and the UNSC in preventing conflict is non-existent because of its lack of independence from Western hegemony.
Substitute the questions about Syria with same questions about the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and you get your answers why the world is not up in arms against the Russian military intervention in Ukraine. Only the West is, but it was the West that made such actions acceptable.
Ukrainian leaders institance to defend Bakhmut at any cost and the outcome of that battle may create a narrative problem for media, thus far eager to promote the notion that Ukraine will be able to retake all the lost terrirties militarily.
The words of Scott Ritter, a retired US Marine Corps intelligence officer whose statements were celebrated by the Russian media that Ukraine faces inevitable defeat, depend on military estimates and indicators that the Western media tries not to address.
Away from the details of the decisive battles in Bakhmut, and in general, the reports that the Western media controls are obfuscating them, talking about the emergence of symptoms of the defeat of the Ukrainian army. And indications of developments indicate that Ukraine is not on its way to achieving a complete victory, with the apparent stumbling of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's attempts to recover what his country lost in the war.
Western media and officials in Ukraine are promoting the spring offensive as it will adjust the balance of military forces and restore dignity to the Ukrainian army, without any indication of the date of the attack or on which front it will start. There may be actual preparations for this counter-attack, but this does not negate that it may be a last attempt before the great collapse.
The words of Scott Ritter, a retired US Marine Corps intelligence officer whose statements were celebrated by the Russian media that Ukraine faces inevitable defeat, depend on military estimates and indicators that the Western media tries not to address.
Everything is already there, Ritter adds. The decisive defeat of Ukraine is inevitable. Ukrainian forces can do nothing to prevent Russia from destroying them.”
Regarding the promised spring offensive, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba says that the failure of the offensive planned by the Ukrainian armed forces will strengthen the positions of supporters of a settlement with Russia in the West.
“They (proponents of settling the conflict with Russia through diplomacy) are everywhere – in Washington, in Berlin, in Paris, in London. They will try to do something creative in the spirit of Minsk-3.”
According to Kuleba, if the Ukrainian offensive falters, this will affect the additional supply of American and European weapons. He also noted that there is a narrative in the West that is dangerous for Kiev that the Ukrainian Armed Forces must wage “one decisive battle” that determines the outcome of the entire conflict, otherwise military assistance must be stopped.
On the other hand, a lengthy report published by the New York Times revealed many imbalances among the American volunteers in Ukraine, some of which relate to claiming non-existent military experience, wasting resources, and trying to profit from the war.
The “New York Times” highlighted that the research and interviews it conducted revealed a series of acts of deception, mistakes, and disagreements among volunteer fighters in Ukraine that hindered the volunteer campaign that began after the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the end of February 2022, when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky launched an appeal requesting He asked all friends of Ukraine who wanted to join the fight in its defense to come to the country, stressing that Ukraine would give them weapons to do so.
Ukrainian officials have shown off nee weapons systems received from NATO nations, which they said will allow them to launch offensive actions to take back territories now under Russian control.
The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, released images of new weapons and transport systems handed over by the US. The Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Oleksiy Reznikov, was shown testing the new Strykers and Cougars handed over by USA.
This unprecedented number of weapons transferred to a war
zone is likely to push both sides to escalate.
Russian officials have used a strategy of inserting new
weapons to the battle field incrementally and in reaction to NATO’s increased
involvement, which can lead to a dangerous nuclear confrontation.
And did Russia exert a level of restraint, voicing their
opposition to those illegal wars (Ira, Syria, Yemen, and Libya) without providing
any lethal aid to these attacked nations to defend themselves, made them think
that if they did the same, attack another nations in the future, the West will do
the same (not provide military assistance)?
Since that assumption is proved wrong now, will Russia
supply its friends who are under threat of attack from Western nations, like
Iran, with all kinds of weapons and technology to pre-empt an attack, or strike
military alliances that would allow them to intervene militarily in defense of
their allies?
This is how complex the effects of the war in Ukraine and the
West’s reaction to it is. With election cycles around the corner in key Westerm nations, it is only matter of months, not years, to see how these
decisions will shape the outcome of the war in Ukraine.
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