The impact of the West’s sanctions just seems to be getting worse and worse for Russia.

Now, 98% of Chinese banks — even small regional ones — are refusing to accept direct Chinese payment transfers from Russia, Alexey Razumovsky, the commercial director of the payments company Impaya Rus, told the pro-Kremlin media outlet Izvestia.

Such issues appear to have intensified over the past three weeks, as smaller Chinese financial companies were still processing Russian payments in May and June, Izvestia reported.

Last month, the Russian outlet Kommersant reported that about 80% of bank transfers made in the Chinese yuan were bouncing back with no explanation after being stalled for weeks while banks decided whether they could transact.

Razumovsky told Izvestia the payment challenges with Chinese banks could contribute to supply-chain difficulties and inflation in Russia.

  • @[email protected]
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    1603 months ago

    Between that, his US lap dog Trump looking like he’s going to lose the elections badly, and Ukraine taking control of more Russian territory in a week than they have been able to take from Ukraine in months, Putin is definitely not sleeping well right now.

    • @[email protected]
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      1653 months ago

      Nobody thought Trump would win the first time, Ukraine is still in rough shape, and this could be a new way to avoid sanctions. I like the optimism, but there are reasons to be skeptical.

      • @[email protected]
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        593 months ago

        Thanks for keeping it real. We can celebrate the wins but absolutely cannot become complacent.

      • @[email protected]
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        3 months ago

        This is emphatically false. I knew Trump had a chance, and so did countless others. I voted for Hillary despite really disliking her because of this.

        Only idiotic democrats were overconfident enough to think he couldn’t win.

        • Flying SquidM
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          103 months ago

          I also thought there was a good chance he could win. I hoped he wouldn’t, but I sure didn’t think it was even close to an impossibility.

          • @[email protected]
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            3 months ago

            As long as the Electoral College exists, there remains an almost 1 in 5 chance that the will of the American people will be overturned.

        • @[email protected]
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          3 months ago

          Sure, I’ll admit it. Of course I voted and encouraged anyone to, but the guy was a long time real estate con man known for not paying his vendors and for questionably complex tax avoidance. He bankrupted a casino, twice, and was known for a gold toilet. His biggest claim to fame was a huge misplaced ego. Have you listened to his speeches? How could anyone have taken his candidacy seriously, voted for him, expected him to win?

          I prefer to think of it as giving a naive amount of credit to my fellow voters. They must have been “breaking shit” out of frustration and would vote seriously in the actual election. Nope

      • @[email protected]
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        73 months ago

        Indeed, Russia still has some currency reserves, the shadow gas fleet, huge increase in domestic production of arms, and has some how kept it’s GDP growth up. Not that it doesn’t have issues on it’s horizon, but time is still there to wiggle around them. Also you are correct about Ukraine, many reasons to be enthusiastic, but Winter still looks like it might be rough.

        And Trump, well yea still many days to the election and he may yet pull Vance’s thumb out of his ass. Can’t say I don’t like the nice poll numbers from swing states though, seems like Harris has some good appeal to the swing voters.

    • @[email protected]
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      283 months ago

      The latest national numbers I saw was Harris 48 / Trump 47. That’s not “Trump looking like he’s going to lose badly”.

      • @Worx
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        223 months ago

        Well, there’s no way he’s going to lose gracefully

        (I know that’s not how you meant it)

        • @[email protected]
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          133 months ago

          I’m honestly quite concerned that his cronies might actually succeed in stealing the election this time around.

          They learned from their mistakes.

          • @[email protected]
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            53 months ago

            Last time, Donnie was at the helm, knew it was coming, and deliberately did and did not make certain phone calls that day.

            This time, the opposition will be at the helm. And this time, we are expecting it.

            If “what they learned” didn’t include diet and exercise (it didn’t), I’m honestly not too worried about how it’ll turn out.

          • @[email protected]
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            23 months ago

            To be fair, his air accordion act, playing along to the circus music is his addled head, is fairly on point.

    • @[email protected]
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      3 months ago

      his US lap dog Trump looking like he’s going to lose the elections badly

      Eh, we’ll see. Trump’s “crushing defeat” of Hilary came down to 80k votes in three states. Biden’s “decimation” of Trump was an even-thinner 40k votes across a slightly different mix of three states.

      Dems love to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Just ask OG Tankie Michael Dukakis, Professional Wife-Kisser Al Gore, and Future First Woman President Hilary Clinton. All three gave up wide margins in the last few weeks of the race.

      Would be nice to see Dems run up Reagan/LBJ-esque margins in 2024, but even the best polls still have Kamala in an electoral dead heat despite being miles ahead in the popular vote. She could very easily get Bush v Gore’d in some swing state with a red governor like Georgia or North Carolina or Nevada.

      • @[email protected]
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        3 months ago

        Yes, DO NOT GET COMFY, VOTE NO MATTER WHAT.

        Now that I got that out of the way, yes yes yes, it can always be close and I think it will be just like it was close even in 20 goddamn 20, but here’s the thing.

        Since the 2020 election:

        • january 6
        • asking for more votes than he had from governors
        • stole confidential docs, lied about it, refused to give it up, was raided and still docs are missing, nuclear secrets shared to fat fucking foreign oligarchs simply because they paid to hang out at MAL. Many of America’s informants and spies started getting captured in disturbing trends out of nowhere…
        • SA/Rape case with EJCarrol (judge officially wrote Donny was civilly liable for digital rape because she couldn’t prove it was his penis vs his finger), the multiple defamation cases that followed
        • Felony conviction for election interference
        • RICO case in Georgia for trying to steal votes
        • Killed Roe precedent
        • project 2025
        • extreme side-effects of his frontotemporal dementia impossible to ignore by even laypeople
        • He has said he will be a dictator on day 1
        • Spoke about wanting to split up NATO
        • Told Netanyahu to finish the job
        • Clearly loves Putin, Xi, Kim, Maduro, etc. (dictator fascists, what he dreams of becoming)
        • Switches views based on who is paying him (asked oil barons for a billion dollars to destroy whatever regs they wanted, Elon starts donating and Trump tells us he has to shill for EVs now, hated TikTok until Thiel (who owns stock related to TT) talked him into supporting it

        I’m happy to provide sources on any of the above points :)

      • @[email protected]
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        3 months ago

        It’s not just that Dems have to win by +5% to make sure the Electoral College matches the popular vote, either. Now it almost has to be +7% to +10% to keep Republican election officials from contesting the result and it mattering in the end.

        The Electoral College was bad enough. Its only justification is “whelp, them the rules”. Now Republicans made up a new set of rules and expect us to follow them.

        OG Tankie Michael Dukakis

        I was too young to have memories of the Dukakis run. Was he actually a tankie in the Hexbear sense, or are you just referencing that picture of him riding a tank?

        • @[email protected]
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          33 months ago

          are you just referencing that picture of him riding a tank?

          That, yes

          Although, it’s curious to see people draw the line between “Neoliberal/Neocon warhawk” and “Guy on the Internet who likes Stalin”.

          Get under the hood, and the real distinction is economic policy, not military policy. They’re both big fans of kicking people’s teeth in to get their way.

        • @[email protected]
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          93 months ago

          GA passed laws that gives them the option to ignore the results, just N Carolina did a couple years ago

  • @[email protected]
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    1303 months ago

    This is no problem for Russia since their economy is booming! As the tankies on Lenny repeatedly has reminded me, sanctions has no effect att all!

    • @[email protected]
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      173 months ago

      They started buying weapons from N Korea with goats. Nothing signifies a strong economy like hocking food.

      • @[email protected]
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        123 months ago

        laughs in American post-WW2 propaganda

        I assure you that a handful of well-positioned arms dealers in Russia are getting extraordinarily wealthy. I just wouldn’t want to be one of the kids of a 20-something young man who has been shipped to the front right now, cause they’re growing up broke as shit.

    • @[email protected]
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      73 months ago

      Some people have likened the economic growth that Russia is experiencing like that of the US’ post war boom. So, some analysts believe that Russia will be okay for the foreseeable future. I don’t want to sound coping and I still leave room for imagining other possibilities (the war is still unpredictable after all), but those analysts haven’t considered that 1) USA became the sole major free market economy untouched after World War 2 and the rest of the world became reliant on US as the result. 2) USA has not been sanctioned during and after the war by major Western powers, unlike Russia is today.

  • @[email protected]
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    3 months ago

    There is a rumor that a coup had placed Xi under house arrest and had silently taken over the country a few weeks ago. Normally rumors don’t mean anything in most countries. But this is China where anyone speaking out against their leader would mean you’d get “disappeared”.

    Supposedly the coup plotters don’t like the direction China has taken and want a return to good relations with the West when everyone was making money.

    Moving away from relations with Russia could be a sign of this.

  • Jin
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    423 months ago

    Most be really bad now when China stop helping them lol

    • LustyArgonian
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      3 months ago

      Yeah China was staunchly neutral about this war and I suspected was subtly making it worse/prolonging it to keep the west distracted, wasting money, and divided while they put pressure on Taiwan and other interests.

      But this is weird. I hope they aren’t doing this to keep funds in the country for their own eminent war.

      • @[email protected]
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        3 months ago

        Maybe China just got sick of Russian checks bouncing. They weren’t helping Russia because they like each other.

        • LustyArgonian
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          3 months ago

          Well they do kinda “like” each other in that they rely on each other. They make trades with each other and their economies rely on each other. That will affect China. These are the types of reasons we are helping Ukraine, its not like we “liked” them or that geopolitics is ever based on “liking” per se. Anyway, it’s super weird.

  • @[email protected]
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    393 months ago

    Between this and the looming collapse of the Russian rail network (due to lack of maintenance and supply chain issues for rolling stock parts), it’s finally looking really good for Ukraine. Now we just need Kamala to win so that they keep getting supplies for the campaign.

    If everything goes right, Ukraine could topple the Putin regime. Kind of crazy to think about right now though.

    • @[email protected]
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      13 months ago

      The craziest part of all this is that when the invasion of Ukraine started, some of my coworker friends had genuine concerns that pootie was gonna lean on his nukes.

      • @[email protected]
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        43 months ago

        He still might! Suppose this goes on for several more years and Ukraine keeps getting support and gaining more territory. Then they decide to make a run at capturing Moscow, Prigozhin style. Putin might decide that nuking Kyiv is his only chance at stopping Ukraine from toppling his regime!

        • @[email protected]
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          13 months ago

          If there was ever a good time to use tactical nukes, it was now. Since he didn’t there’s obviously a reason, be it their questionable state or them being scared of the west’s retaliation.

          • @[email protected]
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            23 months ago

            Yes or he’s afraid that if he gives the order to fire a nuke it will be refused and then he is finished. Firing a nuke at Ukrainian forces on Russian soil is no trivial matter. You end up destroying Russian towns and civilian infrastructure.

            Ukraine’s forces are now spread out too much within the Kursk region. He needed to fire the nuke at the beginning of the incursion. But of course that would’ve been before he had the chance to evacuate all the civilians from the area.

            I think the realities of all this prove that tactical nukes are pretty useless as a defensive weapon. They seem to mainly have their use for a surprise first strike.

  • @[email protected]
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    253 months ago

    We must never forget how much it matters to understand that the war is against the Russian government and that us and the Russian people are the victims of that government.

    • @[email protected]
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      133 months ago

      I tried to make one, but ironically, all the famous Chinese trombone players have copyright protection on their images, so I couldn’t.

  • @[email protected]
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    243 months ago

    Something’s happening in China. There’s talks that Xi doesn’t appear on official documents anymore.

    Maybe a soft coup happened or similar.

      • @[email protected]
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        3 months ago

        Maybe I shouldn’t have said that, since there obviously isn’t an official source on it, just some YouTube channels reporting about China that claim it.

        Well. They’re claiming it for two years already, but this time seems different.

        So it’s not to be taken seriously and is just a gut feeling fueled by the YouTube algorhythms and news like this post.

        I suppose time will tell.

  • @[email protected]
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    233 months ago

    Though times ahead for them. It took some time, but maybe we are at least close to the end now.

  • @[email protected]
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    113 months ago

    Wow, tough break guys. I’d offer to help you out, but all I’ve got is half a roll of quarters and I need to use that for laundry. Good luck though.

    • @[email protected]
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      53 months ago

      Look, I’d help out, but all my donation budget had already gone to Ukraine (and Palestine).