Machine Translated and then refined by The Saker’s Team of Translators
Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Russian Security Council, spoke about the tasks of the Russian special operation and the role of the United States in supporting neo-Nazis in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta. And also-about the near future of Europe, the Russian gold and foreign exchange reserves and sanctions, and what changes are waiting for our country in the near future.
Nikolai Patrushev: The West has created an empire of lies that implies the humiliation and destruction of Russia. Photo: Mikhail Sinitsyn / RG
Nikolai Platonovich, today, perhaps, the term “Cold War II” no longer seems an exaggeration. The Americans do not hesitate to declare that they won the confrontation with the USSR and now they will also win. How do you assess these views?
Nikolai Patrushev: Washington has been and is causing crises in its quest to consolidate its hegemony, resisting the collapse of the unipolar world. The United States is doing everything to ensure that other centers of the multipolar world do not even dare to raise their heads, and our country not only dared, but publicly declared that it will not play by the imposed rules. They tried to force Russia to give up its sovereignty, identity, culture, and independent foreign and domestic policy. We have no right to agree with this approach.
In an attempt to suppress Russia, the Americans, using their proteges in Kiev, decided to create an antithesis of our country, cynically choosing Ukraine and trying to divide essentially a single people. Having failed to offer anything positive to Ukraine, even before the 2014 coup d’etat Washington promoted the idea of exclusivity of the Ukrainian nation and hatred of everything Russian. However, history teaches that hatred can never become a reliable factor of national unity. If there is anything that unites the peoples living in Ukraine today, it is only the fear of the atrocities of nationalist battalions. Therefore, the result of the policy of the West and the Kiev regime controlled by it can only be the disintegration of Ukraine into several states.
Europe, as you warned a year ago, ended up facing an unprecedented crisis, including one caused by the flow of Ukrainian refugees. How can this affect the internal situation in the European countries themselves?
Nikolai Patrushev: Europe is facing a deep economic and political crisis for their countries. Rising inflation and declining living standards are already taking a toll on the wallet and mood of Europeans. In addition, large-scale migration adds new challenges to old security threats, such as illegal drug distribution and transnational crime. Almost five million Ukrainian migrants have already arrived in Europe. In the near future, their number will grow to ten million. Most of the Ukrainians who have come to the West believe that Europeans should support them and provide for them, and when they are forced to work, they start to rebel.
Representatives of the criminal community who have escaped from Ukraine will try to occupy niches that are favorable to them, put local criminal groups under control, which will undoubtedly be accompanied by an increase in crime in Europe. We will see a revival of the widespread sale of orphaned children taken from Ukraine for subsequent illegal adoption in Europe. The West is already facing a revival of the shadow market for purchasing human organs from socially vulnerable segments of the Ukrainian population for clandestine transplant operations for European patients.
The flow of migrants from Ukraine began long before 2022, and now it reminds Europe of long-forgotten diseases. After all, only a tenth of refugees from Ukraine are vaccinated against coronavirus infection, viral hepatitis, tuberculosis, rubella and measles. Because in this former prosperous republic of the Soviet Union, the system of sanitary and epidemiological control and primary health care was almost completely destroyed.
The goal of denazification is to destroy the neo-Nazi foothold created by the West’s efforts on our borders
But this, apparently, only flowers?
Nikolai Patrushev: You’re right. This is just the beginning. Against the background of anti-Russian sanctions, the world is gradually plunging into an unprecedented food crisis. Tens of millions of people in Africa or the Middle East will be on the verge of starvation because of the West. To survive, they will rush to Europe. I am not sure that Europe will survive the crisis. Political institutions, supranational associations, the economy, culture, and traditions may become a thing of the past. Europe will howl in helpless frustration but America will be freed from its main geopolitical fear – the political and economic union of Russia and Europe.
America has long divided the entire world into vassals and enemies. We are a testing ground for them. Photo: Getty Images
The United States and its allies ignore the neo-Nazis and open fascist ideology in Ukraine, pumping it with the most modern weapons. Isn’t it time for us to recognize a number of unfriendly countries as countries that support fascism, with all the consequences that follow from this?
Nikolai Patrushev: Europe is already facing an increase in officially banned manifestations of fascism and neo-Nazism, as Bandera-fed criminals with neo-Nazi views are fleeing the inevitable criminal prosecution along with migrants from Ukraine. This will lead to the revival of Nazi ideas in Europe, to phenomena that were considered impossible not so long ago. The growth of ultra-right sentiment is probable, fueled by tens of thousands of trained and combat-experienced Ukrainian radicals who have already found a common language with European fans of Hitler.
History is repeating itself. After all, the West almost until September 1939 denied the danger of the Nazi regime. In 1938, Time magazine generally recognized Hitler as the Man of the Year.
Nikolai Patrushev: In the 1930s, the West not only did not deny, but actively contributed to the formation and building up of the power of fascism in Germany. Especially big business. It was later, after the war, that Western historians created the myth of German industrialists who allegedly made the main contribution to the creation of Hitler’s war economy. Some American companies even collaborated with the Nazis until 1943, that is, until the decisive turning point in the war.
There is even a theory that the Zyklon B gas used by the Nazis to kill people in death camps was created using Western technologies.
Nikolai Patrushev: And you can read about how the Nazis built this whole process. Everyone knows, for example, IBM. It was on her counting machines that the Nazis kept records and planned the processes of extermination of people in concentration camps. Its CEO, Watson, received a state award from Hitler. And this is just one of many examples. Now history is indeed repeating itself. The West still provides the most active support to Ukrainian neo-Nazis, continuing to pump Ukraine with weapons.
The American and European military-industrial complex is exultant, because thanks to the crisis in Ukraine it is flush with orders. It is not surprising that, unlike Russia, which is interested in the speedy completion of a special military operation and minimizing losses on all sides, the West is determined to fight even to the last Ukrainian. For some reason, the world still thinks that militarists and aggressors must wear uniforms. But don’t be deceived by Anglo-Saxon respectability. No fancy clothes can mask hatred, anger, and inhumanity.
If all the instructions of the head of state in the field of import substitution were fulfilled on time, we would be able to avoid many problems in the economy
Many of our opponents in the world claim that they do not understand or do not recognize the goals of a special military operation, considering that they are far-fetched.
Nikolai Patrushev: The special military operation has specific goals, on the achievement of which depends not just the well-being, but the lives of millions of people, the salvation of the population of the LPR and DPR from the genocide that Ukrainian neo-Nazis have been creating for 8 years. At one time, Hitler’s fascism dreamed of destroying the entire Russian population, and today its followers, according to the precepts of Hitler, are blasphemously trying to do this with the hands of the Slavs. Russia will not allow this to happen.
Speaking of denazification, our goal is to destroy the neo-Nazi foothold that the West has created on our borders. The need for demilitarization is caused by the fact that a Ukraine that is heavily armed poses a threat to Russia, including from the point of view of the development and use of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
Do you think that the United States can really stage such provocations in Ukraine?
Nikolai Patrushev: You are talking about a country whose elite is not able to appreciate the lives of others. Americans are used to walking on scorched ground. Since the Second World War, entire cities have been obliterated by bombardments, including nuclear ones. They flooded the Vietnamese jungle with poison, bombed Serbs with radioactive ammunition, burned Iraqis alive with white phosphorus, and helped terrorists poison Syrians with chlorine. I do not think that the lives of Ukrainians are concerned about the United States, which has repeatedly proved its aggressive anti-human nature. As history shows, NATO has also never been a defensive alliance, but only an offensive one.
Why do American elites need all this?
Nikolai Patrushev: America has long divided the entire world into vassals and enemies. In the United States, people are taught from childhood that America is a shining city on a hill, and the rest of humanity is just a testing ground for experiments and a resource appendage. Four hundred years ago, settlers from England robbed and killed the Indians because they thought they were uncivilized savages. Now all this has been replaced with democratizing and human rights-based rhetoric and the piracy continues on a global scale. American elites remember how the United States managed to become a superpower after two world wars, but now they do not want to accept that the American global empire is in agony.
Is the collapse of the American-centric world a reality, in your opinion?
Nikolai Patrushev: This is the reality in which you need to live and pursue the course of action. In this regard, Russia has chosen the path of full protection of its sovereignty, firm defense of national interests, cultural and spiritual identity, traditional values and historical memory.
Our spiritual and moral values allow us to remain ourselves, to be honest with our ancestors, to preserve the individual, society and the state. Europeans, for example, made a different choice. They have adopted so-called liberal values, although in reality they are neoliberal ones. They promotes the priority of the private over the public, individualism that suppresses love for the Fatherland, and the gradual withering away of the state. It is now obvious that with such a doctrine, Europe and European civilization have no future. Apparently, they will repeat the lessons they haven’t learned yet.
Which ones?
Nikolai Patrushev: There are quite a few of them. Don’t forget that all historical upheavals start with the spread of popular but potentially destructive ideas. Think of the French Revolution. From its misinterpreted slogans emerged the tyranny of Napoleon, who drowned half of Europe in blood but broke his teeth on Russia.
What has our country done? Dismembered France, burned Paris? No, Emperor Alexander I restored French statehood and in 1815 initiated the creation of the Holy Alliance in Europe. The Union aimed at respecting the territorial integrity of States, suppressing nationalist movements, and ensuring Europe’s forty years of peaceful existence.
A little over a hundred years later the ideology of Nazism appeared. The Soviet Union did everything possible to destroy it, but at the same time initiated the revival of an independent German state. Stalin insisted on this at the Yalta Conference. The USSR was the first to support the unification of Germany in the late 1980s. Our country has historically played a special role in shaping not only the geopolitical, but also the moral climate in the world.
You have figuratively described the Anglo-American style of interaction with the world as piracy. Now the West is making a similar pirate raid on Russia. And in this connection, the question arises as to how justified was the decision to place gold and foreign exchange reserves abroad?
Nikolai Patrushev: This decision turned out to be unjustified from the point of view of the state’s financial security. Another thing is that by doing so, the West is hitting not only Russia, but also itself. The current global financial system is built solely on trust, including in the United States as the issuer of the world’s reserve currency. Half a century ago, the gold factor was present, but in 1971, the United States untied its currency from its quotes, which made it possible to issue money in a virtually uncontrolled fashion.
Trying to support its economy in a constant pre-crisis state, the United States is actively pumping its banks, businesses and the population with money secured by government obligations. The result was high rates of inflation in America and Europe. At the same time, the US external debt exceeded $30 trillion. Yet for some reason Americans are discussing a possible default of Russia. It’s time for them to default. To overcome the negative consequences of past policies and create new opportunities for enrichment, United States is creating a global crisis. That is, they want to solve their problems at the expense of the rest of the world, by the way, primarily at the expense of Europe.
In my opinion, this doesn’t bother the Europeans.
Nikolai Patrushev: Moreover, they are happy to step in the direction of the abyss that the United States has dug for them. In this sense, much has changed since the Cold War. Then the Europeans resisted Washington more confidently. Apparently due to the fact that the old generations of realist politicians have not yet become a thing of the past. At that time, the wall was in Berlin, and the current European elite has a wall in their heads.
I do not think that the lives of Ukrainians are a concern for the United States, which has repeatedly proved its aggressive inhuman nature. NATO has also never been a defensive alliance, only an offensive one
In the 1980s, in an effort to weaken the Soviet economy, the United States tried to ban European companies from buying hydrocarbons from Moscow. At that time Europe did not go along with Washington. The United States also banned its own companies from selling offshore drilling technologies to the USSR, which resulted in dozens of American and Japanese firms being affected. Washington used disinformation to delay the Soviet Union’s construction of a gas pipeline to Europe. Does it remind you of anything?”
And what do we need to do to ensure the ruble’s sovereignty?
Nikolai Patrushev: For any national financial system to be sovereigntized, its means of payment must have intrinsic value and price stability, without being pegged to the dollar. Our experts are working on a project proposed by the scientific community to create a double-circuit monetary and financial system. In particular, it is proposed to determine the value of the ruble by having it be backed by both gold and a basket of commodities, and to put the ruble exchange rate in line with the real purchasing power parity.
Similar ideas were raised before. But many experts claimed they run counter to economic theories…
Nikolai Patrushev: They do not contradict the economic theories but rather Western economics textbooks. The West has unilaterally established an intellectual monopoly on the optimal structure of society and has been using it for decades. Let me remind you that the shock reforms of the 1990s in our country were carried out strictly according to American guidelines.
The fascination of our entrepreneurs who emerged from that era with market mechanisms alone, without taking into account the specifics of our country, is a risk factor. We are not opposed to a market economy and participation in global production chains, but we are clearly aware that the West allows other countries to be its partner only when it is profitable for it. Therefore, the most important condition for ensuring Russia’s economic security is to rely on the country’s internal potential, structural adjustment of the national economy on a modern technological basis.
How successfully is this task being solved today? Now again, there is a lot of talk about import substitution, but it is no secret that a decisive breakthrough has not yet been achieved.
Nikolai Patrushev: The tasks and priorities are set absolutely correctly, and we will continue to implement them. Another thing is that it is necessary to significantly tighten the discipline of their implementation, including among the relevant departments.
If all the instructions of the head of state in the field of import substitution were fulfilled on time, we would be able to avoid many of the problems that the Russian economy is facing today.
I’ll give you an example. The creation of a plant in St. Petersburg for the production of high-quality insulin was opposed by a number of Russian entities. Today, this is a serious enterprise, where the production of medicines is completely independent of imports, with the exception of packaging. However, that should also be produced by ourselves, as we are told, for example, by food manufacturers. Of course, we should not turn a blind eye to significant achievements. Significant success in import substitution was achieved by Rostec Corporation enterprises, primarily those that produce defense industry products.
To cite another example, thanks to the Food Security Doctrine developed by the Security Council, we were able to increase the self-sufficiency of our country with basic types of food. This is a very serious achievement, which our country completely failed to achieve throughout the entire XX century. Therefore, all attempts by Westerners to shift responsibility for the global food crisis provoked by them to Russia are obviously doomed to failure.
Russia will have to expand the range of domestic high-tech products. It is important to promote domestic developments in production as soon as possible. We will pay special attention to qualitative changes in the selection of scientific personnel and assessment of the effectiveness of their activities. Russian science should become a leading productive force, one of the driving forces of our country’s development.
I am confident that we will solve all the problems that have arisen as a result of the sanctions restrictions. Russia is moving from the European market to the African, Asian and Latin American markets. We give priority attention to the Eurasian Economic Union whose importance is growing in the current conditions. We are stepping up cooperation with the BRICS and SCO countries, which bring together about three and a half billion people on the planet.
You mentioned science, but in modern conditions, I think it is necessary to rebuild not only it, but also higher education and schooling.
Nikolai Patrushev: I am sincerely convinced that we cannot develop successfully without a clear understanding by the whole society of our national goals and objectives, the full depth of our spiritual and historical identity. Therefore, every citizen of our country, every Russian, from the very childhood should know and understand what we all live and work for as a single people, and what we strive for.
The West continues to act in line with the inhuman doctrine of the “golden billion”, which implies a significant reduction in the world’s population in various ways. To do this, the West has maliciously created an empire of lies that implies the humiliation and destruction of Russia and other undesirable states. They spit in our eyes and say it’s God’s dew.
Washington and Brussels do not hide the fact that their sanctions are aimed at both material and spiritual impoverishment of Russians. Destroying our education by imposing so-called progressive models of education is as strategic a task for Westerners as, for example, bringing NATO closer to our borders.
In fact, there is nothing progressive there. In the United States, for example, many people already say that you should sing and dance in math classes, because solving problems and equations oppresses and discriminates against someone. We don’t need such” progress”. The current situation proves the need to defend traditional Russian spiritual and moral values, reform the education and enlightenment system with the return of historically justified advantages of the national school. I am still convinced that the Soviet school of education has historically been the most advanced and progressive in the world, and moving forward should take this into account.
What exactly should be done?
Nikolai Patrushev: It is necessary to pay more attention to the development of logical thinking, to form stable knowledge and the ability to make independent decisions, and not just put fill in blanks in tests. Develop the applied application of fundamental sciences.
It is impossible to rely solely on the digitalization of education since the Internet can be not only a source of encyclopedic information but also of politicized misinformation. At the heart of everything lies the development of personal intellectual and spiritual qualities. Properly educated, well-rounded, physically and morally healthy children who know and understand the history and culture of their Homeland are our wealth and guarantee the guaranteed successful development of Russia. For the sake of the future of our children, for the sake of a prosperous and prosperous country in which they will live, we are working today.
Within this interview Patrushev said that a proposal is being worked on to back the ruble with gold and other commodities. Kremlin advisor Perkov also came out recently saying this idea was being discussed.
However, yesterday, the head of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation Elvira Nabiullina following the meeting of the regulator’s board of directors contradicted this:
“As for the binding of the ruble exchange rate to gold, it is not discussed in any way,” she said.
So, it appears Politicians have confirmed the idea of a gold and commodities backed Ruble is being discussed / worked on and (perhaps unsurprisingly) the head of the privately-owned Russian Central Bank has come out to strongly deny the claims.
So, who is right here?
https://tass.ru/ekonomika/14518985
She is. Russia is in IMF. IMF opposes gold backed currency. Digital Ruble though is all good. Amazing that the Russians play ball. Funny that WEF wants digital currency. Is Russia independent really or is it more like key Oligarchs have great influence even if it hurts Russia?
How is it possible that this evil woman Elvira Nabiullina , responsible for the loss of 50% of central nak reserve is still in charge and alive?
You have to put food in the trap or you will never catch the pigeon.
Elvira is going to be jettisoned when this Special Military Operation is over and domestic development returns as the focus of national attention. She is always going to parrot the West’s Liberal policies.
Meanwhile, she lost control of 350 Billion dollars of assets left in the West to be confiscated.
Chubais is in big trouble for bankrupting Rusnano, the high tech corporation of the Russian state.
Big heads are heading for the chopping block in Russia.
Kudrin is another. As soon as the war began, he rabbited to Israel. Showed his colors.
With blood and treasure and suffering the daily diet of the day, there’s no more room for Liberals.
Pay no attention to Nabiullina, She’s excess baggage right now.
Hello Larch,
Always very nice to hear from you. However, it appears that lately you do not partake much in the comments here at The Saker – which is a loss to this community.
Pray – please continue often to write more of your insights here.
Kind Regs
WM
Trust the plan, eh? Meanwhile this atlanticist maintains her role as the head of the most important institution in the federation, having recently been chosen by Putin for another 5-year term.
Is the RF still hosting WEF’s Cyber Polygon on 8 July 2022?
People love to hate Nabiullina.
All I have to say is has anyone taken a look at the Ruble lately? That woman has a deft hand on the controls and she is clearly living with the current commitments while being part of building the new.
Watch it :-) You’re going to be surprised.
And did you see the profit that Russia could make on the Russian reserves that were frozen? Seems like a good deal to me .. a few billion here, another few billion there, and pretty soon we’re talking about real money (grins).
🇷🇺🇺🇸⚡️Volodin stated that up to $500 billion worth of Western assets were blocked on the territory of the Russian Federation, which counterbalances the $300 billion of Russian reserves blocked in the West.
In the event of the confiscation of the property of Russian oligarchs in the West, Russia will begin to confiscate the property of Western businesses in Russia.
Yes, people love to hate traitors who are rewarded. Any one of a number of people can perform her tasks, yet she was chosen, again.
And what about Sberbank? Will they be hosting WEF’s Cyber Polygon in July?
I agree with Amarynth. At the present stage of economic development, the Russian Federation needs people like Elvira, who also have an idea of capitalist economic cycles, since RF is currently a capitalist country, albeit one that is trying hard to reduce capitalist evils and increase the state share.
Hopefully, there are no Russian gold reserves in the West, only paper dollars or similar paper money.
From what I know, Elvira is not part of the 5th or 6th column like Kudrin, Chubais and others. It is much more important to keep an eye on Deripaska, Potanin and similar oligarchs. But as long as these oligarchs work in the interest of the RF, this problem should be managed through inheritance law. It will be a long historical process.
Putin will have to take this into account in Ukraine as well. No heave-ho methods. (Like Yeltsin only vice versa)
The ruble has rebounded as a result of political realities on the ground, and in spite of the IMF’s darling which Putin renominated.
It’s looking more and more like what we’re witnessing is a controlled demolition, and therefore a continuation of the policies which will lead some of us, those who survive, to Build Back Better.
Quote: “The ruble has rebounded as a result of political realities on the ground, and in spite of the IMF’s darling which Putin renominated.”
Don’t know what it is this morning on The Saker Blog, but many people are dreaming and telling their own dreams as if it is honest truth.
“Meanwhile, she lost control of 350 Billion dollars of assets left in the West to be confiscated.”
Cleary you have no idea how it works Larchmonster.
(Removed language,MOD: By the rules please,no insults)
Step1: When Russia sold its goods and services to the USA. What did Russia get paid in ?
$’s
Step2: What could Russia do with those $’s that were stored at the FED ?
a) Buy anything sold in $’s . Any imports it needed that were made in the US.
b) After Russia bought the imports they needed what do they do with the rest of the $’s ?
c) They could keep them as reserve balances at the FED
d) They could swap them for a US bond ( Treasury security) to earn more interest at the FED.
e) They could swap them into rubles to take them out the FED.
If they did e) what would that have done to the exchange rate ?
The reason left the $’s at the FED is because it puts downward pressure on the ruble. Which helps when you export your way to growth like Russia does.
Hence why they are all talking about now to concentrate on domestic economic policy in the future instead of just exports. For Russia to start investing within its own borders.
Here’s the kicker and think about this. The $350 billion did not all belong to the Russian state. Most of it belonged to Russian business. It was Russian businesses that were saving $’s at the FED that have been frozen.
It was Russian businesses that sold the goods and services to the USA who got paid in $’s. Not the Russian state.
So there was absolutely nothing Nabiullina could do.
As Nabiullina has no right to move Russian businesses profits around it is unconstitutional. Laws are there to prevent the state from doing that.
$’s held by the Russian state were moved out of the FED. Over the last 10 years you can see the number of US bonds the state held reduce dramatically.
Hence, why the Russian state now wants to be paid in rubles instead of $’s. So the rubles are held at the Russian central bank and not as $’s at the FED or as Euros at the ECB.
Russia’s reserves of foreign currencies (US Dollars or Euros or Yens or whatever) do NOT need to be kept at foreign entities such as the FED or the ECB. Russia can have those reserves domiciliated at home. For instance, if you are in the UK, you can open Bank accounts in other currencies like USD, EUR, CHF, etc. inside the UK and domiciliated in the UK. All you need is a bank that allows you to do that, and I am sure major Banks operating in Russia would easily allow the State to have such accounts. This is the so-called offshore eurodollar system (note: this has nothing to do with the euro-dollar exchange rate, and nothing to do with tax-heavens).
Torgiest,
Nope,
You are missing the transaction part and how the currencies ( payments start their journey)
The reserves you are talking about at the Russian central bank are rubles swapped by the Russian central bank for USD, EUR, CHF, etc. Which is not the issue here.
That’s the issue with the $ being the reserve currency. When the US pays for things it credits the accounts Russia has at the FED. When the EU pays for things it credits the accounts Russia has at the ECB. That’s why they were easily frozen.The
Let’s begin with the example of US consumer buying a Russian car.
If the consumer pays cash for it, the consumer’s checking account in a US bank is debited and the Russian carmaker’s account is credited, thereby increasing foreign savings of USD financial assets. Total deposits in the US banking system remain unchanged.
If the consumer borrows to buy the car, the bank makes a loan to the consumer, which results in a loan on the asset side of the bank’s balance sheet and a new deposit on the liability side (loans create deposits). After the car is paid for the Russian car company has the new bank deposit. Consumer borrowing increased total bank deposits and funded foreign savings of USD.
That’s what the finance behind the trade gap is all about – foreigners desire to net save USD financial assets and sell goods and services to the US to obtain those assets.
Following the above transaction the foreign holder of USD bank deposits may instead desire to purchase US Treasury securities. At the time of purchase, the seller of the Treasury security becomes the new holder of the bank deposit, and the foreigner the new holder of the Treasury security. (If the foreigner buys securities directly from the Treasury the result is the same.)
The US government is now said to have foreign creditors, and the US is said to be a debtor nation.
While this is true as defined, a look past the rhetoric at what the US government actually owes the holder of the Treasury security is revealing. What the government promises is that at maturity the foreigner’s security account at the Fed will be debited, and his bank’s reserve account at the Fed will be credited for the balance due.
In other words, the US government’s promise is only that a non-interest bearing reserve balance will be substituted for an interest bearing Treasury security. This is not a potential source of financial stress for the government.
Why are the German trade surplus paid in $’ held at the FED ?
Why is China’s trade surplus paid in $’s held at the FED ?
Why is Noway’s trade surplus paid in $’s held at the FED ?
Why is China’s trade surplus paid in Euros held at the ECB ?
Why is Noway’s trade surplus paid in Euros held at the ECB ?
Why are the German trade surplus paid in £’s ‘ held at the BOE ?
Why is China’s trade surplus paid in £’s held at the BOE?
Why is Noway’s trade surplus paid in £’s held at the BOE?
Because that is how it works.
Trade and external finance mysteries – Part 1
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=39282
Trade and finance mysteries – Part 2
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=39303
Tax havens in $’s are part of the $ system.
Tax havens in £’s are part of the £ system.
Tax havens in Euros are part of the Euro system.
The US treasury issued the $’s that are in the $ tax havens they show up on the FED balance until they are returned from where they came from. They return when whoever holds them starts spending them.
Take a look at US bond holders after they swapped the $’s they received for selling goods and services from a reserve balance to a US treasury.
Top 10 countries
China
Japan
UK
Luxembourg ( Tax Haven)
Ireland ( Tax Haven)
Switzerland ( Tax Haven)
Cayman Islands ( Tax Haven)
Taiwan
Belgium
Brazil
Excellent interview. Provides context and perspective.
Reading it one clearly sees not only not the moral and existential imperative compelling Russia to act, but why this struggle is the struggle of all humanity.
Ironically, Russia might actually end up saving Western Europe from itself once again.
Thank you for the excellent interview and translation.
I second this! It was a staggering and magisterial overview of the Russian geopolitical position and hopes for the future. One of the most important interviews ever written. It requires rereading and digestion over time. It is more relatable and detailed for the common man than VVP or Lavrov’s more intellectual, historical and principled position statements of recent months.
It also informs the abject desperation of the Anglo-Zionists and why they are in the process of triggering a slow-motion Samson Option.. Their way of life, predicated on “the piracy [model which] continues on a global scale” was fully halted in the head-long collision into the wall of the Russian world. They have no response or solution to being checkmated so comprehensively by a superior civilizational foe. Every which way they lose.
Russia will again be the sword and the shield of the peripheral nations in Asia, Africa and South America against the center of the North Atlantic region, the imperial golden billion with its colonial past and its insufferable self-righteousness. China will be at its side and they will prevail. See Immanuel Wallerstein and his World Systems Theory.
Given that Russia’s future lies outside the West, I think the Saker blog should focus more on Russian cultural and economic convergence with China above all, but also the rest of Brics and Iran. Is Russia training enough people from early age in their languages and culture so that Russians can grow up to be as at home in Shanghai, Madras, or Jakarta as they have come to be in Paris, New York, or Vancouver? Russia needs a total makeover to become conversant with the ways and thought processes of the peoples on whom its future depends. I wish Saker would dedicate itself to telling that story and focus less on the West, which today is Russia’s past, not its future.
Olhem para o Brasil e veja que as eleições de 2022 poderão ser decisivas para fortalecer os BRICs. O ex-presidente Lula que ser eleito sinalizou mudanças.
What leads you to believe Russia’s future depends on the “ways and thought processes” of other peoples? Russia is one of the few nations with all the natural resources, including rare earth elements, necessary for industry and high technology generally. They do not need a thing from anyone.
Training in languages and culture trains one to think and to express oneself, The Western concentration on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects produces dumbed-down uncritical consumers of mass media, marketing and political propaganda.
Wow! It is coming thick and fast here at the Vineyard. Kudos to the Translation Team.
An excellent overview by Nikolai Patrushev, Russian national security chief (and Vladimir Putin’s old comrade in the KGB.) So much to digest here.
Nikolai Patrushev: You’re right. This is just the beginning. Against the background of anti-Russian sanctions, …
… I am not sure that Europe will survive the crisis. Political institutions, supranational associations, the economy, culture, and traditions may become a thing of the past. Europe will howl in helpless frustration but America will be freed from its main geopolitical fear – the political and economic union of Russia and Europe.
There we have it, the Russian view of the contest between Russia and the Hegemon articulated by one of the Kremlin’s top guns. Patrushev can see absolutely clearly what the US, the Hegemon, is up to.
This particular contest is being fought on so many levels and manifested in a variety of domains — a local military one in the Ukraine, a wider contest with Nato/Europe and an even wider contest — largely unspoken — between the Hegemon and its European vassals. It’s like a wrestling match between several contestants to see who will be the last man standing (my money’s on Russia). America is truly screwing the Euros via Nato/EU, pitching the Euros against Russia. Some lucid minds in Nato/EU capitals — Ankara, Budapest, Vienna, etc — can see it coming but they’re too few. The rest will be reduced to poverty, hunger and anarchy if this goes on for much longer and if Europeans especially Germans — the Americans fear German potential more than anything — do not regime-change their ‘leaders’ forthwith. It is not improbable that there will be reverse migration from Europe. The jews will flee to Israel; the rest? — perhaps to Rwanda or, for the Germans, Namibia.
PS. There’s talk about London imposing direct rule on … the British Virgin Islands, supposedly because of the colonial government’s ‘systemic corruption.’ Perhaps the Brits are setting the groundwork just in case they have to move there.
Stand Easy, the BVI is the most favoured hidey-hole for ill-gotten wealth. The top gangsters all have accounts there, hiding behind robust secrecy laws.
I would have thought the reason for the ongoing coup is self-evident.
Laws have value only if they are respected.
Nikolai Patrushev, is the next President of Russia, be sure.It seems less moderate than Putin, a good thing for me.
Both are right.
The board of the central bank, meeting, did not discuss the issue in any way.
The Russian leadership are discussing the issue.
I think that the issue is geo-strategic, above the authority of the central bank, and it also requires recognition from Russian trade partners.
Discussion will turn into policy if and when China, India and other partners, view the concept of currency valuation outside of USD as more beneficial than not.
I don’t know what his intent is. In the United States, the top National Security official is never asked such a breadth of diverse questions that are beyond his expertise and role. He is speaking like Sergey Glazyev, but at least Glazyev is a university professor and an “intellectual.” Is he angling himself to be a president after Putin? Why does he speak like an oracle on diverse subjects like education and schooling, banking, economic theories, Europe’s social and political crisis, the special military operation, American elites, history, global financial system, import substitution, the ruble, and finally on “what should be done.”
Putin should worry. This is not good at all. It does not strengthen the State. It does not strengthen his president’s leadership. I will grant that the interviewer is asking the questions and putting him on, but he gladly engages all the questions. This man is playing Rasputin here – in one of the oddest if not the oddest interview of such a “security official” that I have seen. What is he doing I don’t know. They forgot to ask him about the role of sports in society, the auto industry – he can discourse on anything. Is he really a master of all these issues? I don’t think so. I followed the history part; it’s a politicized history. For example, we know who funded Hitler. The Germans did for the most part, and not the big industrialists. Hermann Schacht, his economics minister and president of the Central Bank, who was against Hitler, makes clear in his biography written in the 1950s that the German workers funded Hitler’s party and his rise to power. Is that surprising? No, such were the times… As the Secretary of the Russian Security Council, he is speaking as if he were a candidate for the Duma or the presidency, even. And he’s old. You would think that with his experience he would stand in accordance with his position.
My sense or explanation to myself is that he is competing not with Putin, but with all the others.
In the United States, the top National Security official is never asked such a breadth of diverse questions that are beyond his expertise and role…
Well I agree that Jake Sullivan doesn’t have the expertise, is not up to the task and shouldn’t be asked such wide-ranging questions. But has it ever occurred to you that perhaps, maybe, mayhap that Russia operates a wee bit different from the ‘exceptional’ nation?
I see nothing wrong with this interview. Patrushev covers all the angles — diplomatic, military, economic, even sociologico-cultural — that should be of interest to the head of the national security council. Patrushev has just demonstrated in this interview his firm grasp of the issues, befitting a very competent head of national security. Quite probable too that these are matters discussed by VV Putin and his close advisers and senior ministers.
Patrushev has never been a real politician and I doubt that he’s interested in political office although I think he might be a good successor to Putin.
message read.
“The USSR was the first to support the unification of Germany in the late 1980s.” As a Communist nation, hostile to the West? With barbed wire to keep people in? With people being shot trying to escape to the “west”? Too many films exist to deny this happened. Also, are you saying that Solzhenitsyn was a novelist instead of a scribe of USSR history in the ’20, 30’s, and ’40’s? He wrote the accounts of witnesses to the horrors of Lenin’s evil henchmen and Stalin’s evil henchmen and no one denied they were accurate historical accounts.
There was evil at the top, just as evil has been at the top ever since the Alexander Hamilton rammed the Constitution for the united States through the Continental Congress to abandon the Articles of Confederation and create that lever of power called the “US government” complete with the US Army whose first action was to shoot Pennsylvania farmers shipping their liquid corn to the coast markets.
“As a Communist nation, hostile to the West? With barbed wire to keep people in? With people being shot trying to escape to the “west”? Too many films exist to deny this happened.”
Ironic as it may now seem, but it is now that exact “West” which now closes their borders and locks their citizens inside of their country. The barbed wire now replaced with virtual surveillance systems to keep any of those who now dissent against their country’s domestic policies: Canada. New Zealand. Australia. If you don’t have the shots of compliance then you will be locked within the confines of your country’s borders. Protest? Emergency dictatorial powers are invoked and bank accounts are locked and closed and protesters are arrested and subjected to third-world inhuman treatment (solitary confinement, repeated anal rape in the name of ‘security’, no due process).
No, the old Soviet system was not humanitarian. But that system collapsed and has been replaced with a system whose future bode better than the West – the West that now is embracing the same totalitarianism that was the hallmark of the walls and barb-wire borders of the CCCP. The neo-West which openly embraces dictatorial powers while mewling that it is “Freedom and Democracy.” The neo-West which seeks to silence any and all opinions which don’t align with their neo-Fascist main-stream narratives labeling all other opinions and facts as “Disinformation” followed by creating laws to silence and jail opposition and dissent.
The new Fascist Western media outlets are now the new “Pravda” where the states showers the public with lies while calling the lies “the truth.”
No, the old Soviet system was not good, but the neo-Fascist totalitarianism now arising in the West will be even worse.
“…rammed the Constitution for the united States through the Continental Congress to abandon the Articles of Confederation and create that lever of power called the ‘US government’…”
The Continental Congress assembled to reform the Articles of Confederation, right? It is amazing that the assembly was used for something not on the agenda – the creation of a different and new Constitution. In harmony with that, the 1787 Constitution was barely accepted by the people’s vote later. I don’t remember the percentage of approval from the people, but it was a small one – it barely passed. It would not have mattered to me because I think I would have been in Canada already. No way would I have taken arms against England. Only the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence of 1776 would have been good to me. I think all the rest are a bunch of exaggerations. Alas, quite a few Americans did make the decision to go to Canada rather than take up arms against England. And how they continued to blame England for social problems later!
It is much more incredible how the communists gained power in Russia, stealing it. I forget the details but it was like a billiards carambole effect and something terrible.
I don’t judge or condemn Russian and Chinese leaders for it, but they would help their country if they were more honest about the past. We know they don’t like “fascism” – okay, all right – but why don’t they have the ‘personality’ to call their systems by a new name? It’s about time the Chinese “communists” do it, and Russia too, which rather than emulate the West in rhetoric, should come up with a different name for its system. They don’t do that and then we have Putin and others making up for this flaw with their interpretations of history like Patrushev here (or for what they lack in originality to be bold, like fascists were, and brand their systems with some new name). I think that then they would look at history more objectively.
“The West continues to act in line with the inhuman doctrine of the “golden billion”, which implies a significant reduction in the world’s population in various ways.”
Finally. A highly visible statesman talks openly about western depopulation efforts…who’s results of those various ways really can’t be hidden much longer.
“Europe is facing a deep economic and political crisis for their countries.”
Sad to say there are no signs something special crisis hinting European economy at least compared to 1991-1993 and 2007-2010. Economic growth likely zero or worst scenario – minus 2% this year and 2023. Most likely near zero economic growth. One of reasons: Europe no more produce much. You can’t destroy European industry when most of that not moved to China is largely home market production (construction, food industry, domestic energy).
2020’s will be on average slow growth decade which doesn’t harm ruling class at all. And nobody care shit about poor people. War propaganda will keep them “happy” and under law and order.
Everybody have to learn the lesson that the real huge damage to European economy has always been done by their own business class and economists. Russia is unable to do that job. Russia itself will be hit hard mostly because its boneheaded played pro west financial sector. Russian real economy thanks to high energy prices will likely survive perhaps doing very well. The question is does it help to keep citizens restful accepting certain negative impacts of this war during the next 3-4 years.
Biden’s seizure of the offshore holdings of the Russian oligarchs has actually done the Russian state a favor.
No longer will the oligarchy wish to transfer money abroad, looted from state owned enterprises, but will instead keep the money in Russian banks, that will benefit the the Russian domestic economy.
If you look at the comments like this, you understand A. Martyanov:
The “West” has “area-wide” no idea …
Fortunately, in the meantime it is completely indifferent what is “thought” outside of Russia…
May all the “nine times smart” liberal-democratic Vielschreiberlinge in their dull “value world”, poor in knowledge and spirit languish. Their history is just coming to an end …
Nikolai Patrushev is sending mixed signals about the economy.
He should stick to security and leave the economics to Sergey Glazyev .
Of all the Russian voices I’ve heard to date. Sergey knows the score and understands clearly how the monetary system operates in the real world. More importantly Sergey understands how to protect Russia economically.
Put the gold bugs in their place. Who’s ideas would only weaken Russia.
Elvira’s otherwise unnecessary exended role helps asuage the enemy but as soon as every chip is in place she’ll be kicked out together with her ilk like kudrin. At that time RF will officially leave the IMF. . .wait by then the WEF would would have cut Russia loose and that will be a victory for RF anyways.
Russia together with China will lead the peripheral nations in Asia, Africa and South America to modest and sustainable prosperity. They will shield them from depredation by today’s center, i. e. the North Atlantic region, those nations with a colonial past, continued imperial intent and insufferable self-righteousness.
It is Hjalmar Schacht, not Hermann Schacht who was president of the Reichsbank until 1939.
“German workers funded Hitler’s party”. Do you mean the German Workers’ Party? The German Workers’ Party was Hitler’s party until 1920, when it was renamed to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Hitler became the leader of this party in 1921. He had been sent there in 1919 as an informant by the Army Command.
Sorry, this was in response to tranquilocomp’s post above: “Hermann Schacht … makes clear in his biography written in the 1950s that the German workers funded Hitler’s party and his rise to power.”
Impressive. Though it’s depressing to admit it, this gentleman’s categorization of my country’s duplicitous, treacherous, pirate government fits it to a T.
How far America has fallen from any semblance of “honor”!
“They spit in our eyes and say it’s God’s dew.”
Ah excellent! I’ve been looking for some time for this Russian equivalent.
In England the corresponding expression is
“They piss down our leg and tell us it’s raining.”
Nice to read some plain speaking. Thank you the Saker team.
The 7 deadly economic frauds ( Russian translation)
http://moslereconomics.com/mandatory-readings/
Then you’ll understand why Russia assets were easily frozen.
“Therefore, every citizen of our country, every Russian, from the very childhood should know and understand what we all live and work for as a single people, and what we strive for.”
And exactly what is it that “… we all live and work for as a single people and what we strive for.”?
If that goal is anything other than to glorify God – Father, Son, and Holy Ghost – with the lives He has given us, then all you are pushing is an empty shell, an idol of man’s creation, as limited and finite and without eternal purpose as any image erected by the idolaters in all the fallen and forgotten empires and kingdoms of the past. That is why the West is decadent – because God, who alone knows what is good and what is evil – said murdering babies (and other people) is evil and will be punished. God said specifically not to worship that collection of people who call themselves government and claim a right to the lives and property of all the productive people they can terrorize by threat of pain and death. Romans 13 “authorities” are Christian church elders, ministers, and deacons, not “government” apparatchiks. The Caesars have been dead and burning in hell for millennia, magistrates blindly serve that artificial entity called “the state” rather than enforcing God’s law and in so doing they have ceded any right to judge disputes, and no bureaucrat prays to God for the salvation and prosperity of the people they supposedly represent: rather the bureaucrat works continually to dominate and impoverish all people outside of that self-aggrandizing clique that calls itself government.
Also, bear in mind that socialism in all its forms is an automatic failure as an economic system or a governmental system. As Solzhenitsyn pointed out, neither Lenin nor Stalin nor any party secretaries after them gave a damn about the form of government: it was all a sham for holding power over masses of people. The one and only economic system that will make Russia greater and the Russian people prosper is the free market where the customers determine what will be produced, the quality of it, the distribution of it for every imaginable item that any consumer – including the military – will want. Only the free market can produce economically and on time. No collection of wage and price setting bureaucrats can possibly manage the infinity of items that change hands within and without a nation. To the extent that the Russian people have been freed to set their own prices and work for themselves, Russia has become prosperous and can defend the right of the Russian people to live as a sovereign nation against the entire West. Following the principles of Austrian economics – which is merely applied Christianity – will push Russia ahead of the rest of the world. Ludwig von Mises was not a Christian to anyone’s knowledge, but liberty and the free market certainly are.
“fueled by tens of thousands of trained and combat-experienced Ukrainian radicals who have already found a common language with European fans of Hitler.”
Not true.
Nowadays European Hitler fans are mostly anti-Nato.
“IBM. It was on her counting machines that the Nazis kept records and planned the processes of extermination of people in concentration camps.”
Ridiculous nonsense, and blatant lie.
No record of that kind has ever been found, no systematic extermination plan has ever been proved.
And there was no electronic storage at the time. But maybe he’s talking about sheet document producing machines: not a single document of that kind has ever been retrieved.
Because the whole story is just Jewish+US+USSR post-war propaganda.
Today it’s not the Empire of Lies vs. Russia.
It is the Empire of Major Lies vs. the Empire of Minor Lies.