And with the first hard Left government in Europe since WW2, Russia looks forward to an enhanced presence in southern Europe and the Mediterranean. “Russian-Greek relations have very deep roots in history,” says Tsipras.
Russia and Greece's relationship spans over a thousand years. They do share the same religion (Orthodox Christianity), after all. The defining moment in slavic history was when St. Vladimir converted to Christianity. This of course also created their alliance and ties to the Greek Byzantine empire... Even the Cyrillic alphabet was based on the Greek alphabet, with extra characters for slavic language.
In fairness to the OP there is a caption on a photo below the article that says Greek PM is due in Russia to visit his counterpart, Vladimir Putin. Greece has been making overtures towards its eastern giant, claiming it opposes economic sanctions on the country. The site itself made the implication. Because it's a pretty out in the open and does relate to the issue.
It's actually rather relevant geopolitical commentary. If Greece won't be getting money from the IMF they will after all need to find a new monetary partner.
There have been clear overtures in that direction already and key party officials already have long-standing relationships with one of Russia's most extreme and influential ideologues [1].
Not to mention that the article itself clearly mentions the visit to Putin on 8th of April; one day before the possible default.
> If Greece won't be getting money from the IMF they will after all need to find a new monetary partner.
Why do they need a monetary partner? As opposed to reverting to what they had before euro, their own currency?
I can see how Greece might try to threaten other Euro countries with "if you don't give us more money, we will give military bases to Russia and prevent EU from helping Ukraine", but that's not really a monetary partnership with Russia.
Agreed. First line of the article: "Greece is drawing up drastic plans to nationalise the country's banking system and introduce a parallel currency to pay bills"
The solution is for Greece to either (1) cash out of euros into another nation's currency for the time being or (2) create their own currency and start stocking the Greek banks with it. Not sure what kind of purchasing power a new Greek currency would have outside of Greece though. I'd say the more likely option would be for them to default, sell their remaining Euros for USD (further undermining the price and credibility of the Euro). Not sure if this is possible and it would likely get really messy.
