Ecuador is transferring Soviet weapons and equipment to the United States, which it once received from Russia, in exchange for new American equipment. The Soviet States are going to transfer the Soviet Union to Ukraine. Russia, having learned about such an “unfriendly” gesture from Ecuador, a large importer of bananas, immediately found that they did not meet its sanitary requirements and banned their import into the Russian Federation.
Such measures are classics of Russian “trade diplomacy.” But unexpectedly, China came to the aid of Ecuador, which, it turns out, needs more bananas.
How Ecuador can help Ukraine, and China can help Ecuador, read the material OBOZ.UA.
Due to political contradictions in Congress, the United States has been unable to agree on a multi-billion dollar aid package to Ukraine for a long time. So the White House is working on other schemes for the supply of weapons and military equipment. One option is for third countries that do not want to directly supply weapons to Ukraine to transfer them to Washington, which will then compensate for the transfer of weapons from its arsenals.
It is precisely under this scheme that very soon weapons from distant Ecuador could reach the Ukrainian front to destroy the Russians. In January, the country’s President Daniel Noboa said he had agreed to give Washington about $200 million worth of property, which he said had become “scrap metal”, in exchange for new American weapons worth the same amount. Interestingly, this so-called scrap metal consists of weapons that were supplied to the country directly by Russia.
It was about six military helicopters, missile launchers and air defense systems. Recently it became known that the list is much wider and includes: 122-mm BM-21 Grad MLRS – 18 pcs., Osa air defense missile systems – 18 pcs., Mi-8/171E helicopters, 23-mm ZU-23- 2 – 34 pcs., 14.5 mm ZPU-1 and ZPU-2 anti-aircraft machine guns – 128 pcs., Igla and Strela MANPADS – quantity unknown. Equipment and weapons will be sent to the United States in the near future.
Potentially interesting things that Ecuador may still have for Ukraine are 20 M-113 armored personnel carriers, 36 M101 howitzers and 40 L/70/M1A1 automatic guns.
The Russian Federation, of course, condemned such plans of the Ecuadorians and indicated that if implemented, they would be violations of the terms of the contracts (they say that they have a condition that the transfer of weapons to a third party is possible only with the written consent of the supplier). It was reported that the Russian embassy had several “frank” conversations with Ecuadorian officials (as diplomats usually call disputes), but, as we see, the Ecuadorians were not very keen on the Russians’ hysterics.
After this, Russia decided to act more aggressively. A few days ago, Rosselkhoznadzor appealed to the Ecuadorian authorities with a request to suspend the certification of five banana exporters due to the humpback fly. That is, for many years Ecuadorian bananas were safe and tasty, but as soon as the Russians didn’t like something, they immediately became almost poisonous. The Russian Federation decided not to stop there and called on a number of European countries to revoke the certification of carnations from Ecuador, in which flower thrips was allegedly found (supplies went through the EU).
It must be said that such “sanitary measures” in the Russian Federation often coincide with aggravation of relations with certain countries. At one time, Georgian wines or Turkish tomatoes also became bad and dangerous in one day. What’s interesting is that as soon as political contradictions between countries disappeared, the products of these states just as quickly became safe for Russians.
One way or another, Ecuador could lose up to $754 million a year due to Russia’s ban on the import of its bananas and cloves. The country is preparing a technical response to Rosselkhoznadzor regarding restrictions on the import of products. In addition, in the hope of resolving the situation, Russian specialists were invited to come to check sanitary standards.
In a recent interview, Noboa noted that the Russians have taken an inadequate position. “We have a war here too,” Noboa added, referring to the confrontation with drug cartels.
It should be noted that after being elected President of Ecuador in October 2023, he announced his intentions to fight drug crime and violence in the country. And it was the Americans who agreed to help Ecuador in this rather complex process.
China will become a new market for bananas from Ecuador, which are no longer supplied to Russia since the beginning of February, the Association of Banana Exporters of Ecuador (AEBE) reported on the social network X. According to them, the export of Ecuadorian bananas to China is planned to increase by 1.5% in the next five years. 5 times. As the association notes, the opening of the Chinese market for banana producers became possible thanks to the entry into force of a free trade agreement, which was recently approved by the country’s National Assembly. Potential consumers will be 1.4 billion Chinese residents, notes AEBE, which is several times more than among Ecuadorians in the Russian Federation.
Another confirmation that the Chinese-Russian so-called friendship ends where oppression for the Chinese economy begins, was the fact that the main bank of the Middle Kingdom for Russian importers, Chouzhou Commercial, stopped all payments with the Russian Federation.
Now the Chinese are demanding confirmation that the buyer of the goods has no contacts with sanctioned persons and companies and that the products are not used for the needs of the military-industrial complex (MIC) of the Russian Federation and are not supplied to the occupied Crimea.
At the end of December, US President Joe Biden signed a decree allowing the imposition of sanctions against foreign financial institutions if they conduct operations in the interests of the Russian military-industrial complex, thus supporting aggression against Ukraine. The restrictions may include financial institutions that have made “significant transactions in the interests of or on behalf of any person” included in the US sanctions list for activities in the interests of the Russian defense industry, or that contributed to the implementation of such agreements. As a result, state-owned banks in China and Turkey have significantly increased restrictions on financing Russian clients. According to Bloomberg, at least two other large Chinese banks began reviewing their business in Russia in January, intending to sever ties with sanctioned clients and stop providing any financial services to the Russian military sector, regardless of currency or location of transactions. Chinese banks are heavily dependent on the West and prefer not to take risks.
Considering that, according to the central TV of the People’s Republic of China, Vladimir Putin called Xi Jinping on the eve of the Chinese New Year and, in addition to congratulations, also “expressed the concerns of the Russian side due to restrictions on financial and economic cooperation between countries,” the situation for the Kremlin is really becoming more and more “interesting”.
2024-02-11 05:00:00
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