Ukraine is being cleaned up and stabilized. It no longer represents acute danger to the Russian Federation, but it’s also not in a state where Russia could leave it and expect it not to become a problem in the short to medium term. It will remain occupied during the war with NATO; also, Russian army will keep a considerable presence in Belarus, preempting any NATO bright ideas from the West. The main function of Ukraine at this point is that of a noise nexus that obscures other, likely more important aspects of the world war.

Something is going on in Syria; it is possible that the Russians will evict the Americans from there, but that would be only if they want to sucker them into a direct confrontation. I don’t see this happening now, but it would also not be completely unexpected.

There was a warning from Lavrov, that NATO should withdraw to pre-1997 positions. This was completely ignored and I don’t think America actually realizes that Russia means it seriously. That might prove to be a mistake. On the other hand, I don’t think Russians expect America or the EU to take their warnings seriously at this point, so it’s likely just a matter of observing the formalities.

I expect the global economy to react wildly as the new data is absorbed. Commodity prices will fluctuate wildly, the banking sector was in a very precarious state prior to this escalation and I expect a turn for the worse. As the banking sector collapses, I expect the global real-estate bubble to deflate violently. Oil prices are so high, it’s obviously more speculation than actual scarcity at this point, but the effects will be felt regardless.

America made Dollar and Euro a very dangerous place to be in, but this is merely a quantitative escalation over previous developments. Anyone who was paying attention saw the writing on the wall long time ago. Crypto is obviously not a solution, considering how it is obviously controlled by America to the point where it is as regulated and as restrictive as the main stream banking system. America will try restricting gold trade, but good luck with that, and in fact good luck with restricting anything at this point. America is one sound military defeat away from nobody caring about its restrictions or sanctions anymore.

Situation with Taiwan might actually be highly explosive, and the fact that the American media currently moved focus from it doesn’t mean that the situation itself has improved in any way. If China goes in militarily, we might face a complete disruption of supply of all kinds of electronics, which is why I modernized all my computers in advance; I didn’t want to be caught in a situation where my business-critical hardware is five years old and replacement hardware is long-term unavailable. On the other hand, I would recommend that only if your hardware is really worn down, you can easily afford it, and you already stocked up on food and other essentials.

Also, if you didn’t buy gold and silver in 2021 when it was on a huge discount due to a large market artifact likely caused by banks smelling the coffee ahead of what mere mortals are just starting to notice, well, if you didn’t buy it when it was cheap, now you have a problem: either you buy it when it’s expensive, or risk not being able to get it later, or, also likely, risk it doing a Rhodium/Nickel/Bitcoin and exploding completely out of reach. The likely reason why Russia and China didn’t announce switching to gold as the international clearing currency is because they are waiting for the major re-evaluation event, which, in the situation where America just nuked the Dollar (and thus all fiat currencies because they are all referenced to the Dollar), is imminent.

There’s a forecast of a serious solar storm, which might introduce technical difficulties with unforeseen results. With nuclear forces on high alert, satellite errors might produce false alarms that might be unfortunately combined with other alarms due to military activities.

American false flags designed to simultaneously harm and blame Russia are likely to the point where I would say that something is bound to happen. There were too many attempts to preempt media coverage for it not to be suspicious. I can’t say whether bio-, chem- or radio- attack is more likely, but if it’s to happen, Ukraine would be the hand holding the weapon, and Langley would be issuing the order. Whether this fig leaf would prevent Russia from retaliating against the actual culprit, remains to be seen, but my current assessment is that Russia still wants to have things contained to Ukraine for some reason.

What people usually mean by sanctions is this: “If you behave contrary to my expectations, I will not trade with you”. A normal, expected answer to this is “Ok, suit yourselves, but good luck trying to heat your homes without gas, and trying to sell all those luxury goods in your oversaturated markets.”

What America means by sanctions is something else: “If you behave contrary to my expectations, I will not only not trade with you, I will also forbid you to use the agreed upon world reserve currency in trade with other countries, I will forbid international banks to do business with you under threat of blocking them out of the world reserve currency and payment systems, I will order financial institutions to confiscate your money, and forbid everyone to trade with you if they don’t want to share your fate.”

Basically, America is pressuring other countries to enforce their arbitrary sanctions, or else. This means that the sanctioned country can’t just exchange unpleasantries with America and proceed to do its thing with third parties; the third parties are threatened with exclusion from international financial system and trade, which is a dangerous thing if you have debt, and today everybody does; America controls the agencies that assess one’s creditworthiness, and if someone’s credit rating suddenly becomes “risky due to sanctions”, that would be too bad, wouldn’t it?

In a situation where the sanctioned country is militarily much weaker than America, it can’t really do much other than starve and resort to covert means of conducting trade. But in a situation where America tries to sanction a military peer (Russia or China), such sanctions are de facto a declaration of war, because it is much more effective to destroy America with military means, than to have your trade restricted, risking economic suffocation.