Western sanctions are clearly biting — Russia has revived barter trade as a means to work around them, trading wheat for Chinese cars, flax seed for building materials, and other goods. In 2024, the Economy Ministry issued guidelines to support such non-monetary trade methods.

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1. The economic system in the former CMEA (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) of the Eastern Bloc was a goods-for-goods system with “Valuta” as a uniform currency to record the value of exported goods in the accounts. Valuta is only an accounting value and not a physically existing amount of money. It was, as the headline says, a pure barter trade of goods for goods.

2. And they will continue to trade in those goods until Ukraine launches kinetic sanctions against food production and storage facilities.

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