Past Pepe Escobar, posted with the author's permission and cantankerous-posted with The Cradle

The battlefield is drawn.

The official Russian blacklist of hostile sanctioning nations includes the US, the European union, Canada and, in Asia, Japan, South korea, Taiwan and Singapore (the only 1 from Southeast Asia). The Global Due south should be enlightened there are no nations from West Asia, Latin America and Africa.

Moscow has non even announced a package of what could exist defined every bit "counter-sanctions from hell". Yet a prescript on "foreign exchange obligations to foreign creditors" which allows Russian companies to settle their debts in rubles is already an eye-opener.

Economist Yevgeny Yushchuk defined information technology as a "nuclear retaliatory landmine".

It all revolves effectually a new presidential decree, signed last Saturday: "On Temporary Guild of Obligations to Certain Strange Creditors".

Information technology works like this: to pay for loans obtained from a sanctioning country exceeding x meg rubles a month, a Russian company does non have to brand a transfer. They ask for a Russian banking company to open a contributor account in rubles nether the creditor'south name. Then the company transfers rubles to this account at the electric current substitution charge per unit, and it's all perfectly legal.

Payments in foreign currency merely go through the Primal Bank on a case-by-example basis. They must receive special permission from the Authorities Commission for the Command of Foreign Investment.

Equally I discussed with Michael Hudson, what this means in practice is that the bulk of the $478 billion or so in Russian foreign debt may "disappear" from the rest sheets of Western banks. The equivalent in rubles volition be deposited somewhere, in Russian banks, but Western banks, as it stands, tin't access information technology.

It's debatable whether this straightforward strategy was the production of those non-sovereignist brains gathered at the Russian Fundamental Banking concern. More than likely there has been input from Sergei Glazyev: here is a revised edition, in English language, of his groundbreaking essay Sanctions and Sovereignty, originally published by expert.ru, which I previously summarized.

Meanwhile, Sberbank confirmed it will issue Mir cards co-badged with Mainland china's UnionPay. Alfa-Bank – the largest private banking company in Russian federation – will also upshot UnionPay credit and debit cards. twoscore% of Russians already have a Mir card for domestic use. Now they will also be able to use it internationally – via UnionPay'south enormous network. And without Visa and Mastercard, commissions on all transactions will remain in the Russia-Prc sphere.

De-dollarization in issue.

Mr. Maduro, gimme some oil

The JCPOA negotiations in Vienna may be reaching the concluding phase – as best-selling even by Chinese diplomat Wang Qun. But it'southward Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who introduced a new, crucial variable.

Lavrov made it https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-foreign-minister-sergei-lavrov-said-fri-that-moscow-is-demanding-guarantees-from-the-us-before-backing-the-islamic republic of iran-nuclear-deal-citing-the-current-wave-of-western-sanctions-against-russia/ar-AAUE5Dy?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531 quite explicit, as registered past NATOstan media: "Nosotros have asked for a written guarantee…that the current process triggered past the United states of america does not in any mode damage our right to free and full trade, economic and investment cooperation and military-technical cooperation with the Islamic Democracy."

As per the JCPOA, Russian federation receives enriched uranium from Iran and exchanges it for yellowcake; and in parallel is reconverting Iran's Fordow nuclear establish into a research center. Without Iranian enriched uranium exports merely there'south no JCPOA bargain. It boggles the mind that US Secretary of Country Blinken does not seem to empathize that.

Everyone in Vienna, sidelines included, knows that for all actors to sign on the JCPOA revival no nation must exist individually targeted in terms of trading with Iran. Tehran too knows information technology.

So what's happening at present is an elaborate game of Western farsi mirrors, coordinated betwixt Russian and Iranian affairs. Russia's Ambassador to Tehran, Levan Jagaryan, attributed fierce reaction to Lavrov in some quarters to a "misunderstanding". This will all be played in the shade.

An actress element is that according to a Persian Gulf intel source with privileged Iranian access, Tehran may be selling as many as 3 meg barrels of oil a day already, "so if they exercise sign a bargain it will not touch on supply at all, only they will be paid more."

The assistants led past that zombie remote-controlled by earpiece/teleprompter is now absolutely desperate: it is banning all imports from oil and gas from Russia. Russia is the second-largest exporter of oil to the US, behind Canada and ahead of Mexico. The replacement "strategy" is to beg for oil from Iran and Venezuela.

And then the White House did transport a delegation to talk to Venezuelan President Maduro, led by Juan Gonzalez, the White House tiptop Latin America adviser. The offering is to "convalesce" sanctions on Caracas in exchange for oil.

The United states of america government has spent years – if not decades – burning all bridges with Venezuela and Iran. The USG has destroyed Iraq and Libya, and excluded Venezuela and Iran to sort of accept over global oil markets only to terminate upward miserably trying to purchase out both, and thus escape from being crushed by the economic forces it has unleashed. That proves, once once more, that regal "policy makers" are completely clueless.

Caracas will request the emptying of all sanctions on Venezuela and the return of all its confiscated gilded. Seems like that was not exactly cleared with "President" Guaido.

Social cohesion torn apart

Oil and gas markets, meanwhile, are in total panic. No Western trader wants to buy Russian gas; and that has zilch to practice with Gazprom, which continues to duly supply customers that signed contracts with fixed tariffs, from $100 to $300 (others are paying over $3,000 in the spot market).

European banks are less and less willing to grant loans for energy merchandise with Russia because of the sanctions hysteria. A potent hint that Nord Stream 2 may be literally six feet under is that importer Wintershall-Dea wrote off its share of the financing, de facto assuming that the gas pipeline will non exist continued.

Everyone with a brain in Germany knows that two extra LNG terminals – notwithstanding to be constructed – volition not be enough for Berlin's needs. There is non enough LNG to supply them. Europe will have to fight with Asia over who tin pay more than. Asia wins.

Europe imports roughly 400 billion cubic meters of gas a year, with Russia responsible for 200 billion. In that location's no way Europe tin find 200 billion cubic meters of gas anywhere else to supercede Russia – be it in Algeria, Qatar or Turkmenistan. Not to mention its lack of necessary LNG terminals.

So manifestly the top casher of all the mess will be the United states of america – which volition be able to impose not only their terminals and command systems but also profit from loans to the EU, sales of equipment and full admission to the whole Eu energy infrastructure. All LNG installations, pipelines and warehouses will exist connected to a sole network with a single control room: an American business dream.

Europe will be left with reduced gas production for its – dwindling – industry; job losses; decreasing quality of life standards; increased pressure over the social security system; and, terminal just not to the lowest degree, the necessity to utilise for extra American loans. Some nations will get back to coal for heating. The Green Parade volition be livid.

What near Russia? As a hypothesis, even if all its energy exports were curtailed – and they won't: the top clients are in Asia – Russian federation would not have to use its strange reserves.

The Russophobic all-out assail on Russian exports too targets palladium – vital for electronics, from laptops to aircraft systems. Prices are skyrocketing. Russia controls l% of the market. Then there are noble gases – neon, helium, argon, xenon – essential for production of microchips. Titanium has risen by a quarter and both Boeing – past a third – and Airbus – past two thirds – rely on titanium from Russia.

Oil, nutrient, fertilizers, strategic metals, neon gas for semiconductors: all burning at the stake, at the anxiety of Witch Russia.

Some Westerners who still treasure Bismarckian realpolitik have started wondering whether shielding energy (in the instance of Europe) and selected article flows from sanctions may have everything to do with protecting an immense racket: the article derivatives arrangement.

After all, if that implodes, because of a shortage of commodities, the whole Western fiscal system blows up. Now that'southward a real system failure.

The key outcome for the whole Global South to digest is that the "West" is not committing suicide. What we have here, essentially, is the Empire of Lies willfully destroying German industry and the European economy: so easy when you have Brussels ventriloquist dummies to help you do the muddy work.

To destroy the European economy means not allowing extra market place space for China, blocking the inevitable extra trade which will be a straight consequence of closer exchanges betwixt the European union and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the globe'due south biggest merchandise deal.

The cease result will be the US eating European savings for lunch while Red china expands its center course to over 500 million people. Russia will exercise just fine, equally Glazyev outlines: sovereign – and self-sufficient.

Michael Hudson has concisely sketched the lineaments of regal self-implosion. Nonetheless way more than dramatic, every bit a strategic disaster, is how the deaf, dumb and bullheaded parade towards deep recession mixed with virtually-hyperinflation will rip what's left of the West's social cohesion autonomously.

Mission Achieved.

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