At the turn of the XIX century trade between China and Russia was dominated by two commodities: furs from Russia (which accounted for 95% of Russian exports) and tea from China (which in other years reached the same 95%). Kyakhta, in Buryatia, was for centuries the main border crossing for trade between the two countries. Situated by the small Kyakhta River, the settlement was on the most direct caravan route between the Siberian center of Irkutsk and Beijing. In Kyakhta traders spoke Russian-Chinese pidgin, a language that is grammatically simpler than Russian, contains some Chinese words and reflects Chinese pronunciation. https://ar.culture.ru/en/exhibition/rossii-chaynoy----staraya-stolica#:~:text=The%20museum%20houses%20a%20collection,silver%2C%20and%20red%20lacquer%20wood

💬 Russia’s MFA Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova:

The hybrid war launched by the West against the people of Russia is well underway.

Read the transcript in full
Listen to the original audioleak

Here are a few excerpts from the leaked February 19, 2024, conversation between Brigadier General Frank Graefe, head of the Operations and Exercises Department of the Bundeswehr Air Force Command, Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz, Bundeswehr Air Force Inspector, and officers of the Air Operations Centre of the Bundeswehr Space Command Stephan Fenske and Frostedte, who discussed plans for attacking the Crimean Bridge.

🔊 Frostedte: Regarding the bridge, I believe that the Taurus [missiles] don’t have the necessary range, and we also need to know how effective this would be, which means we must have satellite information. I don’t know if we can quickly train Ukrainians for this mission, that is, within a month. How would a Taurus attack on the bridge look? From an operational perspective, I can’t say how quickly Ukrainians will learn to plan such missions and how long integration will take. Since we are talking about the bridge and military bases, I would say that they want to have them as soon as possible.

Fenske: I’d like to say the following about the destruction of the bridge. After thorough consideration, we unfortunately concluded that the bridge is similar in size to a landing strip. Therefore, we would need more than 10 or even 20 missiles.

Gerhartz: It is believed that the Taurus missile, if launched from a French Dassault Rafale fighter jet, can accomplish this.

Fenske: This would only make a hole in the bridge and damage it. Before making any definitive statements, we must first…

Frostedte: I’m not advocating the idea of [attacking] the bridge. I’m simply being pragmatic. We need to know what they want, and what we need to teach them. <...>

Gerhartz: We all know that they want to destroy the bridge, and the potential consequences this may have, and how [well] it is protected, because it has both military strategic and political significance. On the other hand, they also have a land corridor. There are certain concerns about maintaining direct links with the Ukrainian armed forces. Hence my question is: Can we use a diversionary tactic by sending our people to MBDA? In this case, we would only maintain direct ties with Ukraine through MBDA, which is much better than if they were connected to our Air Force.

Graefe: Mr Gerhartz, it doesn’t matter. We must be very careful from the beginning to avoid any wording that would implicate us in the conflict.

I am exaggerating a bit, of course, but if we inform the minister now that we are planning meetings and will travel by car from Poland to remain undetected, this will be seen as involvement. We won’t do this. As for the producer, we must first of all ask MBDA if they can handle this. And it doesn’t matter if our people do this in Buechel or Schrobenhausen, it will still be seen as involvement. I don’t think we should do this. We defined it as the main part of the “red line” from the very beginning, and so we will only take part in training.

We’ll tell them that we will draft a roadmap. The training period needs to be divided into several phases. A long phase will last four months, during which we will thoroughly train them, including the bridge option. A short phase will last two weeks, to teach them to use the missiles as soon as possible. And once they have been trained, we’ll ask the Brits if they would take over at that stage. I believe this would be the right course of action. Just imagine the uproar if the media were to find out about our personnel in Schrobenhausen or our car trips to Poland. I regard this option as unacceptable.

<...>

🔊 Gerhartz: We are fighting a war that uses many more modern technologies than our good ol' Luftwaffe did.

Manufacturing activity across the 20 countries that use the euro has continued to decline, largely due to a slowdown in the area’s leading economy Germany, according to a study by S&P Global.

The report said the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for manufacturing dropped to 46.5 in February from 46.6 in January. The figure is higher than the preliminary reading of 46.1, but below the 50-mark separating growth from contraction for a 20th straight month.

Total factory output across the euro area continued to shrink last month, although the rate of contraction was unchanged from January. Nevertheless, Eurozone manufacturers were able to clear orders pending completion, S&P wrote.

Commenting on the data, the chief economist at Hamburg Commercial Bank, Cyrus de la Rubia, said: “The Eurozone’s one-year industrial recession is not coming to an end. Output has declined again at the same pace as the previous month, mainly due to the heavyweights Germany and France.”(Source: RT) @LauraRuHK

Tarik Cyril Amar reviewed and analyzed the dangerous shadow play everyone is talking about. Only time will tell what kind of shadow play is being staged: actors using their bodies as shadows, or actors holding puppets and using them as shadows. In any case, don't miss his article. @LauraRuHK https://swentr.site/news/593616-macron-scholz-ukraine-troops/

The League of Arab States (LAS) is welcoming the meeting of Palestinian factions in Moscow, LAS Assistant Secretary-General Hossam Zaki told Sputnik, adding that this endeavor by Russia could lead to mutual understanding between them.
Moscow hosted talks between various Palestinian factions, including the Hamas and Fatah movements from Thursday to Friday, with the sides issuing a joint communique. Following the meeting, Mousa Abu Marzouk, the deputy head of Hamas’ political bureau, told Sputnik that there were no differences between it and other Palestinian factions that could not be bridged to form a unity government.
"We have read the final statement of the meeting. This is a good endeavor by Moscow, and we hope that Russia's efforts will lead to the establishment of mutual understanding between Palestinian factions in the aftermath of the war," Zaki said on the sidelines of the 2024 Antalya Diplomacy Forum.
There is still no consensus on many issues related to the ceasefire in Gaza, he added.
Over 30,000 people have been killed so far in the Gaza Strip. (Source: Sputnik) @LauraRuHK

🇪🇺🇨🇳Once again Eunuchs do Washington's bidding at the expense of European interests - The European Parliament passed a resolution requiring the EU to quickly sign a bilateral trade agreement with Taiwan on "supply chain resilience" and to strongly support Taiwan’s participation in international organizations. The resolution emphasized Taiwan's role in the EU's Asia-Pacific strategy and stated that "neither Taiwan nor China is subordinate to the other." ▪️By openly advocating "one China, one Taiwan," the EU parliament challenged the one-China principle, and crossed Beijing's red line. The EU parliament also issued two pivotal reports on foreign policy and defense on Thursday, making unwarranted accusations against China on a number of issues related to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and the South China Sea. ▪️ Although these reports and the resolution have no legal effect they represent a clear provocation. The Chinese Mission to the EU on Friday expressed the strongest opposition to the resolution. The EU's hard stance towards Beijing could seriously damage its relations with China. @LauraRuHK https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202403/1308007.shtml

🤔 The 🇫🇷 French Foreign Minister said that Russia's victory in Ukraine would bring significant financial losses to Europe and could lead to a catastrophic economic situation.

Stéphane Séjourné noted that Russia will be able to control more than 30% of the global wheat market, which may have a negative impact on Western countries. He stressed that it is necessary to prevent Russia's victory without starting a military conflict, since the use of military action in Ukraine is not being considered.

Stéphane, seriously? So blowing up the Nord Stream and imposing sanctions didn't bring "significant financial losses" to Europe already? Regarding wheat — didn't Russia agree on Black Sea deal, with Ukraine stubbornly continuing to flood European markets with Ukrainian wheat?

@ukraine_watch

❗️Breaking | According to Hebrew Channel 14, a large number of officials in the Israeli army's Spokesperson's Unit, led by Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, have resigned.

The mass resignations are due to the officers’ protest against the conduct of operational and personal matters.

Ivo Daalder, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, in an article published by Politico, implies that sending NATO ground troops to Ukraine (in addition to military instructors, intel agencies personnel, special forces and foreign "mercenaries" that are already there) hasn't been ruled out and criticizes Macron for letting the cat out of the bag. Until Macron's admission, this option had been publicly voiced only by people who are no longer in office, such as former NATO sec Anders Rasmussen. Over a year ago Rasmussen was already calling for a "coalition of the willing", suggesting that some NATO countries could send their troops even if no consensus about deployment was reached in Brussels. @LauraRuHK https://www.politico.eu/article/macron-the-grand-master-of-grandstanding/

🇨🇳China's Foreign Ministry calls on Germany to jointly discuss the political settlement of the conflict in Ukraine instead of considering attacks on the Crimean bridge - official representative Mao Ning. (Source: TASS) @LauraRuHK

Ritratto di un paese sotto occupazione.

Vacanze in Italia? Mi piacerebbe, ma devo ammettere che mi verrebbe l'ansia. Dovrei fare lo slalom tra tutti quegli obiettivi militari. https://t.me/LauraRuHK/7843

BRICS leaders have included on the agenda proposals from the Central Bank of Iran to create its own financial messaging system, similar to SWIFT, as well as an organization to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, said Mohsen Karimi, Deputy head of the Central Bank of Iran for international Affairs. @LauraRuHK

RAND FAIRY TALES - When you base your analyses on your government propaganda rather than on reliable intelligence, this is what you get. William Courtney's article contains so much disinformation that you wonder who his intended readers are.▪️ RAND analysts used to be worthy opponents, i didn't agree with their analyses nor their conclusions but at least their articles and essays were a notch above what you would come across in US mainstream media. Not anymore. This is actually a very worrying trend and both reflects and compounds the intellectual degradation of Western elites. Ignorant people make stupid decisions. @LauraRuHK https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2024/03/moscows-history-of-unforced-errors-is-the-wests-hidden.html