Illustrative Image
Putin’s demands for rubles may transform the global economic system.
Written by Paul Antonopoulos, independent geopolitical analyst
European countries were stunned by Russia’s demand that gas be paid in rubles as they seemingly expected the Eurasian country to be sanctioned and locked out of Western financial mechanisms without retaliation. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on March 31 that he had signed a decree forcing buyers from “unfriendly countries” to pay for Russian gas in rubles from April 1, warning that contracts would be halted if these payments were not made.
Although the companies and governments of “unfriendly countries” have rejected the move as a breach of existing contracts, which are set in euros or dollars, French economy minister Bruno Le Maire said his country and Germany were preparing for a possible scenario that Russian gas flows are halted – something that would plunge Europe into a full-blown energy and economic crisis.
Although the halt of gas supplies to Europe could see Gazprom lose about half of its profits and reduce investment, it will have an even greater negative consequence on the European energy sector. Europe will not be able to quickly replace Russian gas with LNG supplies from the United States and Qatar, and as a result, European gas prices could rise to $5,000 per 1,000 cubic meters or even higher, which will force a consumption reduction and hit the economy.
Charles Michel, head of the Council of Europe, presented the EU Programme on ensuring energy security. He stressed that eliminating dependence on Russian energy sources is at the heart of the program as, according to him, it is necessary to quickly get rid of Russian carbon hydrogen and then fossil fuels in general.
However, it is clear that even without the current global energy crisis caused by the lack of gas supplies, it would still be impossible to find a short to medium term solution to replace Russian sources. In this way, EU states, the UK, the US and other listed unfriendly countries will have no choice but to engage in rubles trade if they want to continue receiving Russian energy and not let their economic situations worsen.
Speaking about changes in the global economic system following sanctions and Russia’s responses to the financial hostilities, Serbian geopolitical analyst Borislav Korkodelovic said: “IMF and World Bank data also show that it is becoming increasingly easy for the rest of the world to reject the demands of the West because it is no longer as economically omnipotent as it once was.”
“Even when it comes to nominal GDP, the difference between the BRICS countries on the one hand, and the EU and the US on the other, is narrower (24% to 30% before the pandemic and now it is even smaller). When the GDP is calculated relative to the parity of purchasing power, the stakes have already been replaced: 45% to 44.1% in favor of BRICS.”
For his part, Serbian lawyer Branko Pavlović said that Russia, China and India had a key part in building a new global economic system that is more equitable, as it should have been after the Second World War.
“This is a fight for a whole new international relationship and a return to multilateralism with respect to the sovereignty and equality of states, as envisioned after World War II, but now with incredible economic momentum to the general benefit. Everyone around the world understands that America and the West have been exploitative so far. We are now witnessing a new internationalism of liberation,” said Pavlović.
This sentiment was shared by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov who said that BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) will be at the center of a new world order and stressed that the demand for rubles “is not a change in the terms of [energy] contracts,” but rather “a protection of Russian interests.”
It is this very drive to protect Russian interests that has forced Putin’s hand to demand rubles for energy. In fact, sanctions against Russia have only forced an accelerated change to the global economic system as de-Dollarization is being explored by nearly every major non-Western country.
Alfredo Jalife-Rahme, a Mexican political scientist, said that London, Washington and Beijing agree that there is a weakening of globalization. He stressed that “Moscow’s demand that your gas is paid in rubles” is an example of “the dismantling of the globalized model in the energy framework.”
Jalife-Rahme also explained that “the financial globalization with the predominance of the dollar generated annual profits of 1 trillion dollars for the United States, about 10% of the global GDP. The change of this paradigm may be one of the most serious blows of the Ukrainian situation to American interests.”
The West thought that it could economically collapse Russia, ignoring that sanctions failed to topple Saddam Hussein, Bashar al-Assad, Iran’s Ayatollah’s, Kim Jong-Un and Nicolás Maduro. Rather, sanctions have only forced an acceleration of the de-Dollarization of the global economy. In effect, the demand for rubles for gas is pushing forward a multipolar and more equitable global economic system.
So far. China holds the key to weakening the dollar, if it is in their Communist best interests. https://tass.com/economy/1430065
China is NOT communist: 90% of its economy is in private hands.
Much more actually are controlled by the Communists. They are improtant Co owners.
Who cares, Michale Hudson says it as it is, the Chinese use industrial capitalism, and form it towards socialism, as producers need customers and need a symbiosis a healthy relationship between labor and capital, while the west has financial capitalism, which doesn’t create real goods or resources, but creates just speculative assets with inflation.
They already had socialism and they destroyed it from the inside. Their “German Capitalism” (Reinischekapitalismus, Bismarckism) is not directed to create socialism (again) but rather to put a veil over our faces, and notably those of Chinese themselves. Capitalism only produces socialism via revolution, not via wishful thinking.
Just calling yourself communist does not make you a real communist. Empty words Orwellian junk for mindless and domesticated sheeple, not the reality.
people do throw the term around with precious little understanding.
Nonsense. You’re talking out your ass, and obviously know nothing about China. Unlike USA which is an inverted totalitarian corporate plutocracy, China’s state sector is much more nationalized and the government has control over private firms as well as national ones. All of the major industries are nationalized.
I’ve been watching (from a distance, not a safe one anyhow because I live under Capitalism as well) the evolution of P.R. China in the last two or three decades and they have gone down the drain in terms of any form of “socialism”. The figure of 90% private ownership of the means of production (companies, economy) is recent, from a year ago or so. Not just that, the so-called “Communist Party” is now rather a Confucianist Party, after they adopted “the Plato of the East” as their ideological reference, pushing all the old enshrined Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao to the side by that move. They even accept capitalist “comrades” into the party now. The result, even if the origins and formal ideology are different, is a fascist regime (which IMO can’t survive its own contradictions but we’ll see in due time).
This criticism can be extended (at least in part) to other “socialist” countries like Venezuela, where 80% of the economy is still in private hands, more than two decades after the “revolution”. But Venezuela doesn’t come from the same deeply socialist tradition as China, so it’s to some extent more understandable. Cuba on the other hand retains a quite strictly socialist economy even if it allows for self-employment now (previous reforms that allowed small capitalist business, i.e. privately owned with salaried employees, have been reversed AFAIK).
Dear Sir, as a Marxist I fully agree with you. There is no capitalism without credit, fiat money etc that would eventually lead to crises. I would be glad to see more comments from you
I don’t know if it needs “fiat money” or not. Original Capitalism up to Nixon’s oil-based reforms was very much into gold and silver and Marx himself was not very good at understanding the concept of fiat money, he apparently thought, along with classical economists, that money was a commodity in the essence, i.e. gold, what is clearly not the case: it’s an accountancy tool, a “chaotic” rationing card: there was clay money in Mesopotamia before there was any metal currency, fiat was first, gold/silver/electrum only replaced fiat after political crises which made the state less credible or in semi-barbarian contexts like Western European Bell Beaker “trade zone”.
In any case there was a metal based Capitalism before Nixon and there is a petroleum based Capitalism after him, at least in the US-sphere (but it’s been dramatically influential worldwide).
Russia is apparent using both tools (they just established a ruble gold standard, sorta, and they have the gas/oil material production and captive markets to use the petroleum tool as well) to make sure that its currency remains relatively strong and thus sanctions backfire.
I think all that “fiat money” nonsense is, at least to a large extent a far right (US style: “libertarian” cowboy speculations) rant. They maybe get some things right here and there but overall they talk of that just because they do not want to question the real issue: private property of the means of (our social, collective) production and of (our more private, family scale) reproduction, i.e. our farms, our industries and our homes (in a nutshell).
Thank you very much. So are we considering today two paths of capitalism (which will eventually converge)? I would appreciate a brief comment .
Best regards.
I don’t think the monetary form is that important, I’m just stating that there were in the 20th century and into the 21st one so far two ways of shoring up the USD: first they abided by the old tradition of gold, then they shifted to an appearance of pure fiat but in reality it was backed by “black gold”, as the USD used to be, and still is to some extent, the only divisa that can be converted into oil barrels (prices may vary but it’s worth at least some oil in Saudi Arabia and the petty emirates). That last is changing but we can’t forget that all other states had true fiat money backed only by their own economy and to some extent their monetary policies; for example the euro is relatively strong because the ECB has promoted austericide (although more recently it has also promoted “quantitative easying” but in a way that did not until now cause major inflation).
Personally I do not think we’re heading to any new form of Capitalism nor that these monetary variants are in themselves so significant (I do consider Fordism and Toyotism significant and clearly distinct phases of Capitalism though and to some extent they parallel these monetary structures, we were in Fordism c. 1908-68 and in Toyotism afterwards, which has been already 54 years, all my life — dates apply to the developed world primarily). I think we’re already in the final crisis of Capitalism as such (you can consider the covid hysteria as the kickstarter maybe although there was an early warning in 2008 which went unheeded).
My take is that the Club of Rome was right: that there are absolute limits to growth, that the Earth itself can’t take any more exploitation (Marx saw the human exploitation contradiction but was pretty much oblivious to the environmental exploitation one, which is an even more radical limit: Earth can’t properly fight back as we proles can, at least in principle, but it can pretty much drop dead and not sustain us anymore past a point, and there is no planet B). Hence this decade (and maybe the following one/-s) are the most critical junction Humanity has ever faced, where the alternative is not “capitalism or barbarism” only but “eco-socialism or extinction”. All that “Green New Deal” BS is nothing but “pretend and extend”: it won’t work most likely, at best it may be transitional in some lesser details. That’s because Capitalism is necessarily exploitative, predatory and plans ahead very little if at all.
(continues below)
(cont.) In this sense my stand is different from, say, Extinction Rebellion or Greta Thurnberg or Al Gore or even the Club of Rome I mentioned: I can agree with them that the clock is ticking fast towards a disaster but I radically disagree with any solution being possible in terms capitalist or otherwise exploitative, because exploitation is in itself the problem that must be tackled. Without radically changing that (and I’ll grant you that it’s difficult, yet necessary) there’s no way we can solve our quickly spiraling problems.
If at least some capitalist regimes would actually go renewable energy (solar + hydrogen, plus variants, is pretty much doable right now), we could gain some time, but many other eco-problems remain: plastics, overpopulation, overfishing, agroindustrial pollution and soil destruction, etc., also peak oil, peak uranium, etc. Earth is finite after all, we can’t “grow” without some radical control and Capitalism needs to grow, always grow. That’s over: it’s over first for the West but it’s also over for the rapidly developing economies like China, etc.
It has to be radically reformed (i.e. revolutionarily changed) and we are pretty much not doing that, so the collapse can explode in our hands and is probably doing as we speak.
Thanks !!!. I think I must buy a whole lot of new books
Best regards
On the matter of Fordism and Toyotism, I recommend one that is not very long but quite dense by Toni Negri: “The politics of subversion”, 1989, published in Spanish and French under the title “End of Century” (Fin de Siglo, etc.).
On the matter of the limits to growth, I guess that the many times updated “The Limits to Growth” by the Club of Rome should be a good intro.
Idiot! The CCP rules all of China with an iron fist! ALL companies in China are required to submit to any government order, to work as an extension of the CCP state, and, if the company is above a certain size, to include CCP members on their board of directors. BTW, CCP stands for Chinese Communist Party, and the CCP is the ONLY political party that is allowed in China. Jeesh!
Apply yourself the insult: if you do not understand that “communism” stands for total SOCIALISM, i.e. that no private company, much less one with salaried (exploited) workers, can exist, you should not speak about it at all. First learn, then speak.
Communism is about the proletariat taking control over the means of production, which is not the case in China in any way since long ago.
Russia, China, India, Iran and even Brazil and Indonesia have ruined the dollar for good. Asia Times Pepe Escobar has a good analysis. Most of EU is headed for economic collapse and social implosion like the deadbeat US if Russia cuts off the gas.
You are a very nice person. Go on and I will die laughing.
nazi jens too senile to laugh–
you suck my penis , yes ?
Not only China, there’s a lot of keys, https://thecradle.co/Article/columns/8638
Always very interesting.
Final days of the crumbling americant empire.
Its a joke really, só Putin threat for europeans to pay on rubles is another lie they Will just depósit euros or Dollars and then the russian central bank Will concerto it to rubles same as before. A nothing burger really
is that you jens? or another hillbilly moron from Alabama trailer park?
It really is her…Jens married a new hillbilly hobo on drugs and food card
The key is the euros or dollars will be deposited in a Russian controlled bank.
The catch is in the bank. From now on, the money will be in the Russian bank, and that is a very BIG problem for Us and Co.
Russian president Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Thursday stating buyers must pay in roubles through Russian bank accounts from Friday.
The Kremlin said this would not affect shipments which were already paid for, with payments for deliveries after 1 April due in mid-April at the earliest.
The country is seeking to shore up the rouble as Western sanctions bite.
“Does this mean that if there is no confirmation in roubles, then gas supplies will be cut off from 1 April? No, it doesn’t, and it doesn’t follow from the decree,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.
You do not understand how the process works. Let me explain. EU country X has to open up a Russian bank account first. They then deposit the Euros into the account, and the bank then sells or exchanges the Euros with Rubles. Then with the deposit now in Rubles, the EU account holder can then transfer/pay for the Russian gas. This is EXACTLY how it works, and the demand for Rubles will increase several folds (as evident by the recovery of the Ruble and decrease in the Euro).
But HOW will they convert it to rubles? On the MICEX of course, where there has to be someone that needs to buy euros, and why would they need euros? Why, to buy the euro-denominated stuff like Boeing/Airbus spare parts and other stuff that the Europeans will have to desanction if they want to get their gas.
Beautiful in its simplicity, don’t you think?
The purpose of his demand is to ensure that the money flow for gas cannot be sanctioned or frozen because it will be converted to roubles on arrival via the Gazprom account. Russia cannot use Euro or Dollar because these transactions are controlled by Western banks. They found a different way leading to furious, impotent rage of the increasingly irrelevant EU.
Remember that the West is only about 10 percent of the global population and only about 3 percent of the world’s children. It has now harmed its own competitiveness by mindlessly following American sanctions without anticipation of unintended consequences. Russian currency did not collapse, the loss of western imports will increase their domestic production and improve their already positive trade ballance. Russia is expected to make up for the lost assets frozen by the west in just about a year earning about 250 billion dollars from energy exports alone The exact opposite is true for the EU. The European Central Bank is still committed to printing money, inflation is quickly accelerating with no end in sight causing a massive cost of living crisis. Watch what happens next
” Watch what happens next “.
Me thinks that massive civil unrest in NATO countries, including the US and UK, will either be violently stamped on by employing recent immigrants as enforcers for the State.
OR
Violent revolutions against the Banker owned states will result in the insidious WOKE tyranny being expunged by fire and fury by the majority of citizens. Similar to a French Revolution 2.0.
A little bit exagerated, my dear friend.
It is already happening. Russia has stopped gas supplies to Latvia. Since April 1, fuel has not been delivered through the pipeline from the Russian Federation to the Baltic republics.
Latvia failed to gets its Rubles out.
You really have no clue. No cuts ONLY lies
Guy, go read BBC and Reuters about the matter.
did lgbt sodomy traumatize you in san fagcisco jail? a better transgender social worker can ease your trauma
Well that’s just unlucky isn’t it. In this butthurt belt country, temperatures can easily get to -30 degrees. I give em a day before they all collective start sucking Russia’s dick for a small dose of gas…
The lavatory can harness their natural gas from their rect ums
We can see the birth of the resource based world currency.
No more smoke and mirrors.
Either you have the goods or you don’t.
That simple.
Sad days ahead for the $.
You’re right, however the USA has some resources and they are putting them to use by forcing Europe to buy their overpriced and hyper-dirty fracking LNG. What does Europe have?
A captive population.
Captive Nations
We would be even most probably very worthless as slaves even: erudite maybe but generally too old. There is industry but it depends on foreign energy imports, be them Russian, USAmerican or Arab.
Can I get my next paycheck in Rubels please?
The rebels will give you rubels, for a price. And it’s high and getting higher by the day.
Checkmate is one of the most recognizable words from the world of chess. It is often found both in its original sense (referring to the placing of an opponent’s king in an inescapable position) and in a figurative one (“to thwart”). But it is just one of a number of words in English that that either originated in, or gained popularity from, the game of chess before developing an extended metaphorical sense.
Yeah, why pay with dollars when you can always pay with toilet paper?
So the question for the day? Why is the gas not off? Must be paid in Rubles? Refusal to pay is stated and yet the gas is still on.
Sorry, that was Derrick again. I will switch the modem off.
You can’t be that stupid can you? Do you think everyone’s bill came due on April 1st?
Stupid is when the German government tells Russia to F Off! And sends five thousand anti tank weapons to Ukraine and you can watch on you tube as they are used to kill Russian soldiers and then pretend its like nothing has happened? Stupid is when you pretend to wait for the due date after Germany told you to fuck off we wont pay in ruble but you leave the gas on? Then you send a late pay notice? then a disco notice and after 90 days you slow the flow? All the while that gas is in the factories of germany making weapons sent to Ukraie to kill Russians….Thats what stupid looks like.
Stupid looks like Germany trying to fight WW2 again and getting the same result.
Ignore the SouthFront Russia saviour trolls. They lick any asshole as long as it has a Russian flag sticking out from it. Oh and they don’t take constructive debate/criticism well. It’s like dealing with children in an echo chamber lol…
If people were able to speak without the garbage I am sure it would be a better site for sure. The forums are crap here. While there are plenty of fan boys for Russia there are plenty of ? god only knows what to call them in here as well. So in most cases its shoot first …. too bad really, I think South front is a good site, while it promotes a viewpoint its one that is clearly missing. In addition they tend not to go over board with every article but know their audience well.
germans are becoming nearly as stupid as amarikns
yamal pipeline empty—gas on only when you fart and inhale
Candles and firewood. That’s the future of Europe. Learn to ferment food if you can get any. If we put a ban on Chinese goods here in America, Walmart, Target, the dollar stores, Amazon would simply disappear… That sounds okay …
Rubbing your hands together real fast warms ’em up. Sticking ’em up your rectum works too.
I see Haiti becoming the financial hub of the Western world.
That was Hillary’s plan too.
Do they accept rubles?
$TELL to the moon!!!
Putin is pulling forward the gains so fast in this investment.
Wars are always a moment of inventions, loopholes and opportunities. This war will be not different, we will see who needs who, who will prevail and who will suffer. An huge advantage is not that corrupt as Russia, china etc so we will be far more reliable and productive. In the end that is what nations want reliable business, reliable partnership and contracts, reliable payments and not be invaded because of a dispute. That and the certainty that your partners population are not going to revolt. Investments are due to solid thrust worthy nations not to mavericks. There is a hood change that people deliver to the nation with the most securities. As you would rent your house to the most rich and reliable tenant and not to a adventurers world improving hippie.
Germany still has gas. They actually buying it with Euros. Putin betrayed his people.
CIA lies from alabama trailer park
You are so stupid Russian brainwashed by
propaganda.
We don’t give a fuck anymore about Russian energy Russian business.
This year half of Europe will not need anymore Russian energy supplies.
None of you understand how much money Russia is loosing and will loose per day/year.
When the energy will stop flowing from Russia.
Russia will become the top most poor country in the world.
Did you see how many people lost their jobs in Russia because of Putin??
Well expect more than 70% of Russian population to don’t have any jobs in the future.
Regime change in Russia is inevitable.
Tic toc tic toc the time is running out for Kremlin regime and Duma members.
Tic toc Tic toc 😜🤣🕑
And not the last ….
7560 Russian soldiers are encircled around Kyiv..
we will kill almost all of them if they Don’t surrender.
Slava Ukraine
LGBT sodomy cannot cure your schizophrenia—I suggest Seroquel and thorazine
I hope more then half is absolutly true.
There will be no real changes unless the despotes like Putin, Erdogan and Assad are replaced with something else.
The difference here we at least can replace bad ones nand hope the new ones are better. We sometimes then go back to the old ones too.
The difference is, our own public is so brain dead, they can’t manage to choose anything better than a long chain of dimwits and grifters to rule over us.
THAT’S the difference, my friend.
For those IDIOTS who believe what Kremlin propaganda are telling them.
I have a message towards Russians.
Ukraine have at the moment activate 500000 soliders wich are professionally trained for over 8 years.
Plus we have 14 million men actively training at the moment and are eager to kill Russians soldiers they even try to bribe the millitary to be allowed on front lines.
Ukraine mens are willingly ready to die to liberate the entire country including Crimea from Russian Orcs.
Are you Russia ready to die for Putin??
You Russians already have 18000 dead soliders plus around 40000 injured… and you achieved nothing absolutely nothing apart from dying for Putin
How many of you are ready to die in Ukraine for Putin??
Russian commander are abandoning their soliders .
We caught Russian soldiers with a truck full of floor carpets, I cannot actually believe how stupid they are..
I actually in shock to se so wild Russian animals of soliders.
This Russians soliders are not humans I don’t know what they are to be honest 🤔.
Even dogs are more smart than Russian army.
Absolutlet Incredible stupidity…
Well if Russia wouldn’t have nuclear weapons they will rank on 50 place on military power ranks.
The regime in Kyiv has behaved very foolishly:
1. The history of a country is a long process. When the ruling regime in Kyiv destroys its own national history, it cannot create a replacement history. Consequently, there is no history and no inheritance. Without inheritance, there would be no development. In the end, Ukrainian society became a mess.
2. A strong country is a country that can make use of all resources, in which multi-ethnic human resources are the most important and key. However, the Kyiv ruling regime is ethnically divided and harbors hatred, which has weakened the nation’s resources.
3. The ruling regime in Kyiv has allowed the oligarchs to dominate the politics, the politics cannot be stable because the oligarchs are for their own interests, not the interests of the country.
4. The regime in Kyiv has allowed the West to manipulate politics and make itself a pawn on the chessboard.
5. If a country wants to develop and its people to be happy, it must create a peaceful and stable environment. However, the Kyiv regime did the opposite by violently suppressing the Donbass. So Donbass is getting further and further away.
6. A ruling regime that doesn’t care for the people, doesn’t know how to avoid war to let the people live like hell, that ruling regime is both stupid and ignorant.
7. A country sandwiched between two geopolitical forces without knowing how to reconcile, not knowing how to utilize both of those forces to develop, but standing on one side against the other, then becomes two stupid times.
8. Because stupid actions lead to the collapse of the whole country and then it is impossible to shout: Glory to Ukraine.
If you want to scream, you should shout: Glory does not belong to fools.
Sad, sorry for the people of Ukraine.
(Message from Vietnam)
Its very visble Your knowledge of the Ruthenian history has been evaporaised since the late parts of WW2, where Stalin took over.
The borders were destryed and moved west. Thepopulations was moved west and the Jews wasnt there as important elements as well.
Ukraine try hard to regain their own history which more or less ahs been overruled by Poles and russians.
So what they see as their heroes and freedomfighters for good reasosn were Your enemies.
So why dont You read about it. Its free stuff at the inter and has meny almost semilar versions all 180 degress from the Russian creation.
Most of that actually goes for Russia to west of Berlin. But here we has history and knowledge where most bias is gone.
The Ukraine dividing is done by moving Ukraine west. By that it also was divided in Konstantinopel and Rome catholics. It was Russia by krustjov which added the Russian industrial zones.
Those zones are a very russian thing. By that it becomes leagal to help Russian minorities against others and take over everything for created reasons.
I will remind You that all the Ukra nukes actually was given to Russia, so the Russian paranoia could feel safety. A nuke or two for Moskva by that has been no option.
Jeez, those are the wisest words I’ve heard in years. And to think of what we did to your country and never to answer for it. Shame overwhelms me at this moment.
coping and hoping is not a good look…
ukrops soldiers only trained to be submissive lgbt –seduce obese amerikant transgender
There is a lot happening, zerohedge has a good article on this. Make sure to read the comments!
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/clever-tactics-putin-gets-his-way-rubles-energy-demand
There is a lot happening, zerohedge covers it well, make sure to read the comments!
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/clever-tactics-putin-gets-his-way-rubles-energy-demand
Apologies for the double post :(
Much of the might of the USD is in its ability to but Arabian oil, it makes only all sense that Russia imitates the move by making its own currency the only one to buy its own gas and other commodities.
It’s not very clear what backs the euro anymore.
Why’d NATO do this knowing Russia would do this? The Europeans going after Russia the most are the ones who rely on Russia
Its called war. They are fighting it. Russia is not. Russia thinks its in a special military operation to save its brain washed brothers! Russia needs to wake up to this fact. They are supplying Germany with Gas and oil and Germany just announced that they will help repair all the old BMP and T72s in NATOs stocks and xfr to Ukraine. They will rebuild these with Russian energy. There is no going back, Russia waded into this thinking it would be knee deep and now their balls have hit the cold water. Its to late to turn back time to dive in and get it done or they will be strangled over time. If Russia does not hammer Ukraine then it will be seen as weak, blood in the water and the sharks will come, they already circle soon they will bite.
You just have to follow the Russian blueprint in Syria which was a clue to their incompetence in Ukraine. Syria is an example of how to turn a winning hand into a frozen conflict. Ukraine will be another one, this tome alone for Russia to deal with.
When looking at what western did , it’s look like they are high on narcotic drugs or methamphetamine from teenage until now.
He definitely wasn’t an interior decorator.
americannotstan decayed into 3rd world cesspool 30 years ago—now 4th world—bye bye gringos!
Shit… the CIA always paid me in USD for all the child porn that Ukraine produces, but now it looks like the $ is going to collapse. Anyone knows a place with good exchange rates where I can turn all my $ into roubles?
This was the card I was waiting to be pulled. Unfortunately putin is a traitor to the Axis and NAM.
Instead a Humanitarian effort is needed to wrest control of commie gas and wheat supply.
A world rid of bush cheney and countless ded presidents is no use to be replaced by commies like asshead and his leatherfaced hoe of a wife.
putin needs to die of throat cancer, is not even enough after Aleppo.
Good riddance to the US toilet paper dollar