Also interesting is how US inner politics and foreign politics influence what the Russians do. The Americans cannot like what Russia does:
I just read an update on the development of the Russian finances and reserves. Since years they have reduced the US treasuries they held, but since the sanction, they have dramatically cut them back to now almost meaningless 1.6 billion - some years ago it were over 180 billion. In spring 2018 alone they had sold off 81% of their formerly owned US bonds.
https://www.welt.de/finanzen/article...01c4eedaca.png
Russia's reserves in available capital are some of the highest in the world. Despite the sanctions, they build these even further during the time of the sanctions. They now stand at 467 billion USD. The share of dolalrs in that treausy, is steeply falling, currently cut down to 21%, with 32% of their reserves held in Euros, climbing, 15% are in Yuan, climbing, and 18% are solid gold. This means Russia has bought up one fourth of all gobally available Yuan reserves.
Source of original numbers: Bloomberg.
A very dramatic shift away fromt he dollar and towards China, and towards gold, and Euros.
It also shows that they are bitterly determined to cut ties to the US,and form a new bond with China.
It also shows that they probably can see what is coming at the Western economies - different to the Westerners themsleves who still deny the fallout from their desastrous bank "rescue" operation of the past ten years.
Trump and Putin close buddies? Before the camera maybe. But in reality the third world war has gone hot behind the curtain since long time, it is being fought with cyberspace weapons, in the media arena and by influencing public opinion by wepaons of "populism", and it is being fought in currencies and paper assets on the level of national economies and global currency organisation.
And we are currently in the loosers' seat while celebrating how fantastic we are.