You wanna be Uncle Sam's flunky? Pay the price! The Saker

Ninth (and this is really important), what we're seeing is a gradual decoupling of Russia from the western economies. The West severed some of the financial, military and aerospace ties Russia severed the monetary, agricultural and industrial ones. Keep in mind that the US/EU market is a sinking one, affected by deep systemic problems and huge social issues. In a way, the perfect metaphor is RMS Titanic as the orchestra continued to play music while the ship was sinking. Russia is like a passenger who is told that the Titanic's authorities have decided to disembark him at the next port. Well, gee, too bad, right?

Last, but most definitely not least, this trade-war, combined with the West's hysterical Russophobia, provides Putin with a better PR campaign than anything the Kremlin could have dreamed of. All his PR people need to tell the Russian people is the truth:

"We did everything right. We played it exactly by the book. We did everything we could to deescalate this crisis and all we asked was please do not allow the genocide of our people in Novorussia - and what was the West's response to that? An insane hate campaign, sanctions against us and unconditional support for the genocidal Nazis in Kiev."

Furthermore, as somebody who carefully follows the Russian media, I can tell you that what is taking place today feels a lot like, paraphrasing Clausewitz, "a continuation of WWII, but by other means." In other words, this is a struggle to the end between two regimes, two civilizations, which cannot coexist on the same planet and who are locked in struggle to death. In these circumstances, expect the Russian people to support Putin even more.

In a typical Judo move, Putin has used the momentum of the West's Russia-basing and Putin-bashing campaign to his advantage across the board: Russia will benefit from this economically and politically. Far from being threatened by some kind of "nationalistic Maidan" this winter, Putin's regime is being strengthened by his handling of the crisis (his ratings are higher than ever before).

Yes, of course, the USA has shown they it has a very wide array of capabilities to hurt Russia, especially through a court system (in the US and EU) which is as subservient to the US deep state as the courts in the DPRK are to their own "Dear Leader" in Pyongyang. And the total loss of the Ukrainian market (for both imports and exports) will also hurt Russia. Temporarily. But in the long run, this situation is immensely profitable for Russia.

In the meantime, the Maindan is burning again, Andriy Parubiy has resigned, and the Ukies are shelling hospital and churches in Novorussia. What else is new?

As for Europe, it is shell-shocked and furious. Frankly, my own Schadenfreude knows no bounds this morning. Let these arrogant non-entities like Van Rompuy, Catherine Ashton, Angela Merkel or Jose Manuel Barroso deal with the shitstorm their stupidity and spinelessness have created.

In the USA, Jen Psaki seems to be under the impression that the Astrakhan region is on the Ukrainian border, while the Russian Defense Ministry plans to "open special accounts in social networks and video hosting resources so that the US State Department and the Pentagon will be able to receive unbiased information about Russian army's actions".

Will all that be enough to suggest to the EU leaders that they have put their money on the wrong horse?

The Saker

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*This paragraph was changed slightly for clarity as were some typos elsewhere in the article.

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