> I just feel like there's probably an interesting story there, but we never hear it, just the tidbit that can fit in the headline. They say that the trade was

> I just feel like there's probably an interesting story there, but we never hear it, just the tidbit that can fit in the headline. They say that the trade was done under cover, but they don't tell why the Soviet Union was doing that trading at all. USSR was absolutely existentially dependent on its foreign exchange streams, and what little they were able to sell to the West, was sold it prodigious quantities, no questions asked. The Soviets have probably tried to upsell them again, and again. USSR needed USD like water to maintain the supply of Western luxuries for CPSU higher ups, but what was even more important than that was USSR's near complete reliance of the Western high tech goods up until late eighties. That's why selling things like titanium was taking a precedence for them over making their own jet fighters out of said titanium in the first place. Luxuries, and technologies were taking far higher precedence in CPSU's minds over that.