And So It Came...

 ... pretty nonchalantly. 

Countries of the BRICS economic bloc are currently working on the launch of a financial system that would be independent of the dominance of third parties, according to the Russian Ambassador to China Igor Morgulov. The volume of Russia’s transactions in national currencies with fellow BRICS nations is constantly growing, the envoy said on Saturday in Beijing, speaking at the 12th World Peace Forum (WPF). Morgulov highlighted that Russia-China trade turnover had reached $240 billion and that 92% of settlements were being conducted in rubles and yuans. “We are leaving the dollar-dominated space and developing the mechanism and tools for a truly independent financial system,” the ambassador said, as cited by RIA Novosti.

But I am sure this came as a surprise for Washington, not! And the "horror" doesn't stop here:

In addition, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told Russian daily Vedomosti that BRICS Bridge could provide member states an opportunity to make settlements using digital assets of central banks linked to national currencies. 

You see, that is what happens when one begins to think that the it (in case of a nation) is a measure of everything and everyone, while being rather oblivious to a lucky coincidence of circumstances which provided the US with a winning lottery ticket in 1945. Now, the winnings have been completely squandered on self-aggrandizing and cultural suicide. Which brings us to this. 

People, rightly, point out that Colonel Macgregor continues to perpetuate fairy tales about USSR/Russia and WW II. Keep in mind, Macgregor is a product of the American military education and cultural milieu whose foundation is a a set of confabulated (in reality--stolen valor) military history and primitive propaganda, which in Colonel's case is exacerbated by him being subjected in Germany to German "version" of history, that is to say a complete crap. Colonel doesn't speak Russian, he has zero understanding of Russian idiosyncrasies and, of course, he has never been to Podolsk (Main Archive of Russian Armed Forces) and doesn't know real history of Russia and Russian military. The result is predictable, his continuous repetition of the primitive propaganda (GULAG, one million "executed" RKKA soldiers et al) most likely is a defensive reaction to the exposure of the United States and its Army as an obsolete force with a dismal war record. 

Being a man of honor, he tries to be objective admitting West's decline, but he remains an American exceptionalist and will continue to be such sinking deeper into the cognitive dissonance and disregarding real historians and real Russia scholars. Hence his recent book is a complete military scholarship catastrophe, which included dear to him Battle of 73 Easting, which he included, together with inconsequential Battle of Mons into the list of "Five battles that changed the face of modern war". I can only reproduce the diagnosis by great Michael Brenner: 

Americanism provides a Unified Field Theory of self-identity, collective enterprise, and the Republic’s enduring meaning. When one element is felt to be in jeopardy, the integrity of the whole edifice becomes vulnerable. In the past, American mythology energized the country in ways that helped it to thrive. Today, it is a dangerous hallucinogen that traps Americans in a time warp more and more distant from reality. There is a muted reflection of this strained condition in the evident truth that Americans have become an insecure people. They grow increasingly anxious about who they are, what they are worth and what life will be like down the road. 

You can see manifestations of this insecurity all over the place, and Macgregor is not an exception. So, in his imagination, more Russians must be executed personally by Stalin for him to grasp at the last straw of America's "high moral ground" trying to defend indefensible. 

P.S. How Brusilov's Offensive which dwarfs Battle of Mons in every single respect and laid the foundation for Deep Operations didn't make Colonel's list is a sheer mystery... not.