Chronicles of De-dollarization.

 RT reports: 

Moscow and Beijing have ramped up the share of settlements in national currencies to 25 percent this year against a modest two percent recorded seven years ago, according to the Russian Ambassador to China Andrey Denisov.“The share of national currencies in our [trade] relations with China is steadily increasing. It has reached about a quarter through the nine months since the beginning of the year. This is quite a big progress,” the ambassador said, citing the Chinese partners.

It was said many times, that, taken in isolation, China-Russia economic conglomerate reaches a very high level of autarky, including in the spectrum of high to very high-tech production. Russia, certainly, begins to look like an autarky--it is increasingly self-sufficient. As events of 2020 have shown, Russia weathered a number of storms without losing her focus on a larger aim of national projects and re-industrialization. Obviously, the virtuoso gambit with oil in 2020 by Russia was something to behold, because it overturned decision-making process in global energy. This is how it goes now:

OPEC, Russia and other oil major producers reached an unusual agreement on production quotas on Tuesday, with Saudi Arabia committing to reducing its oil production by one million barrels a day and Russia and Kazakhstan winning relatively modest production increases... Finding that they were unable to head off Russia’s demand for a production increase, Saudi Arabia appears to have largely given in to preserve at least a semblance of unity. “Instead of letting everything fall apart, the Saudis let the Russians have what they want,” said Bhushan Bahree, an executive director at IHS Markit, a research firm.

Didn't we see it a mile away? We did. With $53 per barrel, Russia's oil export feels just fine. It is a good way to fill coffers with cash, just for the rainy day. There are other ways, of course, to fill those coffers, ranging from grain, to weapons, to gas to even, for FFS, with Russian-made UAZ Patriot getting ready to sell in the United States. 

Italian commercial truck brand Bremach has announced plans to begin selling a Russian-designed 4x4 SUV in the U.S. sometime in 2021. The Bremach Taos is a rebadged version of the UAZ Patriot that first hit the market in 2005 and is similar in size to the Jeep Cherokee. However, the Taos is a true body on frame truck like the Toyota 4Runner that’s been updated with the modern safety systems required to make it street legal in the U.S.

Who would have thought? Good ol' Goat (Kozlik), as a legendary UAZ-469 used to be called, always had it in itself, with its ability to basically drive anywhere, to be turned into this:

There are plenty of those on the roads in Russia. In the US, the suggested price is around $26,000--around the price of a new basic version Forester. We'll see how it will sell, but these vehicles are good for bad roads. I, personally, would love to have GAZ Tigr, preferably with AGS and PKM package, but these are just my dreams.  

Speaking of which, tomorrow's voting and pro-Trump rally in D.C. do not change much, no matter the outcome--the country is hopelessly divided and increasingly cannot live with itself. You all know the truism--house divided etc. I don't hold my breath, plus I had my share of tawdry political spectacles last four years, so the only thing which I am trying to calculate is how fast a totalitarian regime will be imposed on the United States, and if there is a chance to avoid it. 

No Shit. I Don't Remember Which One.

So they begin to suspect, now. This is not to say that Bismark necessarily was wrong when stated that Russians do not take a dump without a plan, but somebody finally begins to suspect something. Something they can more or less put their finger on. My disclaimer: I am not specialist in oil extraction and processing technologies, nor am I an oil market specialist, but this looks down right funny.

So, now somebody turned on their strategic thinking and concluded that: 

In his relatively brief stint in power, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) has managed to destroy the Saudi economy in record time while also sullying his own reputation and endangering Saudi Arabia’s geopolitical relations with the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Now, it appears that there is another calamity in the making for MbS. Russia is currently offering him all sorts of benefits in exchange for his consideration of a deal. The deal, though, is pure poison - for him, for his family, and for his country - and it involves Saudi Arabia switching its core alliance from the U.S. to Russia. In exchange, Russia says it will guarantee the future safety of Saudi Arabia, including from Iran-backed threats. A timely reminder of Saudi Arabia’s current vulnerability to the continued threat that Iran and its proxies pose it – one of the key threats that the deal with Russia would eliminate, the Kremlin has said – came in the form of the attack on Tuesday 23 June when the Saudi-led military coalition fighting in Yemen intercepted and destroyed eight booby-trapped unmanned aircraft that were targeting civilian objects and civilians in Saudi Arabia. 

Oh, that was so not self evident (wink, wink) that anyone with the IQ slightly higher than room temperature could have predicted it. In the matters of crude my IQ is slightly higher than room temperature, but the recent events, such as this, put forth a purely political issue which is even more important than any budget considerations for the Kingdom--a survival of its top (whatever they are in relation to each-other) and while the US doesn't have this most prized, hottest and most expensive commodity ever, Russia surely has it and she is ready to bargain--political stability under Russia's military umbrella is a very real deal. That is why there was so much hysteria in D.C, in 2015 when Russia deployed her forces to Syria--it was clear that this was a real deal. Bashar Assad is still around, isn't he? So is Maduro. So, the author of this piece arrives to a "no shit" conclusion that Russia joined OPEC+ to:

• Saudi Arabia is in a very weak position both economically and militarily and has become increasingly reliant on Russia due to the OPEC+ deal.
• The next step for Russia will be to reduce the U.S. military footprint in Saudi Arabia and attempt to offer further protection for Riyadh.

I always have a simple recipe for all those authors and award-winning journalists--study military balance. I know, I know--it is a very difficult task, because US media mostly supply propaganda and BS and learning things by yourself requires more than just degree in journalism or stock trading. Well, c'est la vie, as they say in Germany. Always look at the real military balance and a lot becomes obvious. I would say that Simon Watkins (the author) arrives (granted, too late) to a correct conclusion when states that:

  “Russia has highlighted to the Saudis that it is due to spend nearly US$500 billion on U.S. defense purchases in the next five years but that last time around – with just the Houthis – none of this was any use,” the source told OilPrice.com last week. “On the other hand, the Russian air defense system – currently the S-400 but soon to be the S500 for general roll-out – is regarded by many as the most effective in the world,” he said. In fact, provision for precisely this switchover was made in the 2017 visit to Moscow by King Salman. According to various sources, the state-owned Saudi Arabian Military Industries also signed a memorandum of understanding with Russian state-owned arms exporter Rosoboronexport to buy the S-400 air defense system, plus the Kornet-EM anti-tank guided missile system, and the TOS-1A multiple rocket launcher and thermobaric weapons system, among other major arms purchases. Crucially for Russia, the agreement not only covered the supply of all of these weapons systems to Saudi Arabia and the transfer of necessary adjunct technology but also the manufacturing of these systems in Saudi Arabia, overseen by relevant Russian engineering and technical personnel and Russian security forces to ensure the safety of the people, the plants, and the products, at key sites on the ground in Saudi.

Not only this product is much more affordable, it actually works, Russian base at Khmeimim in Syria demonstrates this constantly by shooting down.... drum roll... ALL hostile aerial targets around it and this includes swarms of hostile drones and rocket propelled projectiles. Plus, Russians do not do "color revolutions", unlike the US which not only destroyed number of countries by removing their "regimes" but is actually doing it to herself now. If you are a Saudi prince, will you trust these nutjobs? Even if you are not a Saudi prince, but some average Joe (or Ivan) you wouldn't take this seriously either. Plus, of course, this chronic malaise of the American "elites"--a total inability to deal with both cause and effect of events. And inability to forecast anything short term, forget mid to long term forecasts which in the combined West, for some reason, are as reliable as a regular bowel movement in a senior retirement home.  

In the end, let's face it--Russia has no benefits from negotiating pretty much anything with the United States. Zero, nada. So, why would Russia, who sells a very good chunk of her Urals crude to the US really care about what US oil industry does as long as it is removed from position of any control of the global oil market together with her Saudi lap dog. Once revenge is served cold, one may, after that, offer a helping hand. It is a typical Russian idiosyncrasy--not to beat those who are laying down. Maybe it should change. Meanwhile, enjoy, if you will, Victory Day Parade from Moscow. It should start shortly. 

Lavrov, Help!!!!

I am now so unoriginal, so stale, so predictable in mocking those cretins from Wall Street and their accompanying media that my only response to this:  

The Dow crashes more than 1,700 points out of nowhere — here's one reason why

Out of "nowhere",  "nowhere", seriously? Is this:

I will remind what Lavrov says this moment: Imbeciles, Fuck. I can give you many reasons why it is NOT from "nowhere", from complete fraud that Wall Street and US financial system are, to a sheer, utter incompetence of US "elites" across the board. But, of course, this doesn't look good either, because it is a death knell for a US "energy" sector which was blown into bubble by cheap credit and financial and geopolitical manipulations.

 As per "second wave" of Covid-19, as I said it before--I do not buy any "statistics" originating from WHO or, for that matter, any American "org" because most of it will be fraud. I am still waiting for a reliable data in this seasonal flu with a clear distinction of causes of death and then, maybe, I will make up my own mind once I have data--for now it is primarily statistical masturbation. What is clear already today that Covid-19 is NOT what it was presented to be, plus, against the background of the US being flushed down the toilet, this whole "pandemic" cannot be taken as merely a public health event. US economy, meanwhile, follows in the wake of US Constitution--into oblivion. 

I stumbled today on Duran's discussion of the fate of the West in general and US in particular. Guys make some mistakes of geopolitical nature there but in general they are correct, especially when talking about rational thought--the most important brick in the foundation of Western culture.

Well, it is gone, it was gone for a long time, because Western "education" is a joke starting from school, that is why West is not agreement-capable and that is why its "elites" are mostly morons, even if they have doctorate degrees in some useless shit like political science or journalism. It is a complex problem and it is not solvable through some "tweaking"--it is generational, it is cultural. It is profound. I wrote about this for years. So, this "nowhere" thing has a set of very particular addresses and most of them are in the open. It is just that this crop of Western "elites" is incapable of seeing it--they do not have vision.

This Is How Real Geopolitics Works.

Here are today's quotes for oil. 

For people even remotely acquainted with energy issues and Cold War 2.0 (I suck at the former and have a clue on the latter) it shouldn't be a surprise to recall that Russia, a producer of Urals brand of crude, has (and had for a long time) her budget calculated with the base price of barrel of her crude of around $40. A year ago, ever-wrong Bloomberg--so, you see my conundrum here, it is near to impossible to find competent and objective observers of Russia in the US, so I have to get whatever I can--noted when reporting on Russia's balanced budget: 

So far this year, the figure was actually under $42 as the government raised taxes but was slow to release planned spending, according to Kirill Tremasov, a former Economics Ministry official and now director of analysis at Loko-Invest in Moscow. For the first seven months of the year, the government reported a surplus of 3.4% of gross domestic product, double the full-year target.

That was August 2019. Something tells me that these were not sanctions Putin was preparing Russia for--Russia lives under sanctions non-stop pretty much all her modern history, so there was very little strategic change in the way sanctions apply--slightly more, slightly less, who cares. My point is completely different here--feel free to browse my writing in this blog this year leading and during this whole oil prices snafu. As was stated--Russia did anticipate an implosion of oil prices and was ready for it way-way before the shit hit the fan, and that means Covid-19 too. And that, once one sees Russia de facto reaching today her very comfortable crude prices, while keeping US shale oil, and Saudis, under her thumb, tells about, pardon my pathos here, superb strategic planning and forecasting at Russia's top political level. 

Of course, strategic planning is like that Electronic Countermeasure Thingy--that is if you have enough power to do so (hint: nobody has)--you can drown in noise pretty much a whole frequency spectrum in which combat electronics worked, works or will work. That will be not only modern iteration of Lope De Vega's (or if one wishes ancient Greek's fable) famous play of The Dog in the Manger, where one doesn't use whatever is at his disposal but also doesn't allow this whatever to be used by others. It is stupid, it is extremely energy consuming and in the end you suppress your own capabilities. But, of course, there is another way and this one goes way beyond Electronic Warfare, where modern ECM and ECCM systems detect, identify and counter almost instantaneously any kind of threat in a narrow frequency band. This applies to pretty much everything in life and is known, of course, as OODA loop. Ah those Observe and Orient truisms, when Colonel Boyd was writing about it he, of course, meant that whoever does this OO routine is observing and orienting oneself within reality. This art, however, as I preach for years, has been lost in the US for a long time now, while in other quarters this art transitioned as an organic part into the fully blown establishment dealing with this Observing and Orienting. No, it is not just intelligence alone, albeit it is part of it, very important at that, it is a whole complex of state and even private institutions who look dramatically different from the inside than all of the US think tankdom which is designed for merely one purpose: through providing sinecures for all kinds of characters from US military-political-intelligence and even business top to push all kinds of political agendas by means of "research" which, depending on who finances it, may, often does, arrive to mutually exclusive conclusions.  Iraq's WMD, you know, cough-cough....

I vividly recall triumphalist declarations in all kinds of US compost media ranging from said Bloomberg to NYT, to all kinds of neoliberal globalist rags, on how Russia is about to go broke and Putin is going to lose his grip on power and how riots are about to break out in Russia, so you get the gist of this narrative, another false one in a long-long record of US media and "analysts" who do not seem to be able to get a grip. At that time, however, few paid attention to a rather calm and nonchalant predictions of Russia's energy minister Novak that things will come back to normal for Russia (and this normal is around $40 per barrel) really soon. Well, looks like Novak and this ever "losing popularity" Putin knew better. I will go out an a limb here and even propose such a ridiculous (not really) idea that Russians knew the essence of the game very-very early. Sometime early last year, I guess. And here is the point, yes, there is Moscow Stock Exchange, but it is primarily for as bunch which stole things in 1990s and nobody really gives a flying fvck, including Russia's government, about what is going on at Moscow's Stock Exchange. Feel the difference with the Western World? Yep, it is all about reality. And reality is such that Russian "liberda", which is a pretencious copy of American moneyed class, lost it big time. 

Make no mistake, most of them are losers by definition and they exist only because Russians are civilized people and decided that they indeed reached the limit on revolutions. But get this: 

This is today exchange rates for Ruble and this is in a stark contradiction to all those domestic and foreign "experts" who predicted Russia's demise with all that follows, like Ruble to USD as 200 to 1. For people, who have never been trained in real analysis and in a development of information into knowledge, the fact that, even with the start of oil wars and then "attack" of Covid-19, there was no rush of Russians buying foreign currencies, such as was the case in every modern Russia's crisis since 1990s, should have been the most important observation. But no, who observes anything when one can create own unicorns-run universe and orient oneself in it, instead of facing hard cold reality of a serious geopolitics which is formed by cold reality of power-balance which rests on the foundation of the sound economic theory. Even in 2007 the United States had a chance to change the world. It failed to do so because, as history shows, it can not learn even from own brilliant men and women. But I repeat myself. In conclusion, I increasingly begin to arrive to the point of view expressed by Karen Shakhnazarov that the whole "oil war" thing was conceived not by Saudis alone, but with the US blessing. We all know the result, don't we. It was forecast and anticipated in Russia.

Yet Another Victory... Not.

News pour in and people begin to feel nervous. How else can one describe this:

Russia became the top crude oil supplier to China last month, overtaking Saudi Arabia with an average of 1.75 million bpd versus 1.26 million bpd for Saudi Arabia, Reuters has reported, citing customs data. In fact, last month Saudi Arabia fell to the third spot among Chinese oil suppliers, with Iraq taking number-two.

As Karen Shakhnazarov proposed yesterday (in Russian)--the whole oil war couldn't have been started by Saudis without US blessing, if not planning. I agree. As much as US depends on Saudis for a number of things, Saudis are what amounts to an American vassal. I don't think they planned it well, to start with--not surprising, once one notices a very weak grasp by planners in D.C. of causality and their inability to calculate consequences, which became a feature of US strategies in the last 20 or so years.  Russia, meanwhile, is what supports China in China's rear through the growing network of oil and gas pipelines and this strategy, if you will, is what matters above all for China which is beginning to be pulled into the war with the United States. So much so, that ideas like this are taking over discussion in the public (media) space.

Mid-2020 saw the world at war, actual strategic war as far as the Forbidden Palace in Beijing was concerned. This was almost disbelievingly acknowledged by some in Washington, DC, London, Canberra, Ottawa, New Delhi, and Tokyo. It was a war that was viewed tentatively and with incredulity in much of the West because it was a war of a very new type. And it was a war in which the West — for the first time in a century or more — did not write the rules of engagement.

For me personally it would have been an extremely interesting undertaking to discuss those ROE (rules of engagement) and how they are "written", especially against the background of the United States going out of its way to sabotage, as an example, Nord Stream-2, by means of putting Germany in her place as the US the doormat, but as the the author discusses and questions "kinetic" options, he arrives to this "conclusion": 

So where and how would kinetic operations begin? It seems clear that Beijing is reluctant to initiate military action, but is ready to engage once it has begun. Both the PRC and the US see advantages and disadvantages in delaying decisive tactical or theater action. The path to escalation to nuclear engagement is also far less clear — and deterrence far less sure — than during the NATO Warsaw Pact “mutually assured destruction” era. There seems a greater willingness by the PLA to engage in nuclear capabilities (ie: against military targets). Military action in the near-term could well consolidate the PRC position in its “near abroad”. It could even achieve de facto or de jure control of Taiwan, a critical legitimizing goal for the CPC, if the US did not rush in tripwire assets and support to show a preemptive tripwire to deter PRC escalation. But what after that?

He even goes as far as to refer readers to a peculiar document titled:

Providing for the Common Defense The Assessment and Recommendations of the National Defense Strategy Commission  

It is a "fun" paper (yet another one among many produced within "intellectual" kitchen of the Beltway thinktankdom stuffed with former military top brass and government bureaucrats), which through repeating  same ol' "we are about to die", a euphemism for "we need more money", provides for a full spectrum of all those good ol' cliches about "atrophy" of skills and, using Pentagonese, calls on:

To meet those intensifying military challenges, DOD will require rapid, substantial improvements to its capabilities built on a foundation of compelling, relevant operational concepts.

It is a dazzling, in its emptiness, linguistic miasma, which still doesn't answer the main question of what are "relevant operational concepts". OK, I get it, Gary Roughhead--one of the authors--is a an Admiral and he was in the position of CNO (Chief of Naval Operations) in 2000s for 4 years, so he must have a profound understanding of the subject matter and he should be able to answer the question on how he is intent to do this:

Protecting U.S. interests from China and Russia will require additional investment in the submarine fleet; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) assets; air defense; long-range strike plat-forms; and long-range ground-based fires. Deterring and, if necessary, defeating North Korea will demand additional air defense assets, as well as a sustained ground presence with the ability to quickly flow additional armored brigade combat teams (ABCTs), fires and combat engineer assets, and other capabilities into theater.  

In the end, what is "operational concept"? Operations (or operation) is defined by Russians (and they know a thing or two about subject matter) as such (in Russian):

A set of coordinated and interconnected in goals, objectives, place and time of combat engagements, battles, strikes and maneuvers of troops (forces), conducted simultaneously or sequentially according to a unified conception and plan for carrying out tasks at a theater (theaters) of military operations, strategic (operational) direction or in a certain vast district (zone) in a specified period of time;  form of military (combat) engagements: Operations are  distinguished by scale, type, and class of military engagements, time and sequence of carrying out. On the scale: Operations can be: strategic, that is operations by whole armed forces and a grouping of forces on a theater of operations; operational-strategic: army groups, fleets (flotillas) etc. 

In other words, the whole thing rests with one's ability, putting it in layman's lingo, to accumulate enough forces and materiel and engage them in such a way against the enemy that the enemy is crushed and all military and political objectives on the theater (of operations) are met. I, so far, know only one operational concept the United States provided in terms of modern warfare--it is throwing more money at the Military-Industrial Complex without any regard to economic and military-technological reality, which, inevitably, resulted in a dramatic, generational, lag in modern weapons and in de facto losing economic competition to China. Sure, the United States still can produce some magnificent things, such as microchips and some (cough-cough) commercial aircraft, but China's production of the main industrial "predictors" ranging from steel, iron, concrete to many machines dwarfs that of the United States. And I mean dwarfs. Just take a look at this picture:

I guess no comments are necessary here. And we all understand that such production of steel translates into such highly finished goods as ships, combat and commercial, structures, power plant, machines and... and weapons. As you may have guessed it already, US being outproduced in this field by China (and Russia) by almost twelve fold, has very little chance to win this kind of the competition. Of course, other crucial strategic metrics do not look that good either:

Of course, after Covid-19 demonstrated to the world US dependency on China even in such a crucial field as pharmaceuticals: 

China, the newsletter reported Tuesday, “accounted for 95% of U.S. imports of ibuprofen, 91% of U.S. imports of hydrocortisone, 70% of U.S. imports of acetaminophen, 40% to 45% of U.S. imports of penicillin and 40% of U.S. imports of heparin, according to Commerce Department data. In all, 80% of the US supply of antibiotics are made” in China.

This whole "operational concept" thingy begins to stink to heavens once one begins to look at and into tangibles, trying to assess how the United States is going to go to "war", especially a kinetic one since, after all is said and done, what is left are weapons and people which are in the foundation "operational concept" and weapons need to be produced, as in manufactured. Here the United States runs into problems immediately. Make no mistake, I will always bet on US Navy's submarine force against China, especially in the operations on Shipping Lanes of Communications--I am consistently on record regarding this fact--US submarine force, for all degradation of the US military, remains its crown jewel and it is, putting it bluntly, better equipped and trained than PLAN's submarine forces. It is simple as that, but I can now predict what any "future" relevant "operational concept" for the United States will look like when considering those kinetic options against China--it will be same ol' AirSea Battle, aka Joint Concept for Access and Maneuver in the Global Commons (JAM-GC), and it is a euphemism for the same ol' stand-off weapons being hurled at whatever the targets will be identified in mainland China and in her littoral from every platform the United States will be able to assemble away from zones of reliable detection and target acquisition by Chinese anti-ship missiles and combat aviation and that doesn't look good for the United States, to put it mildly, especially considering very serious difficulties of US air defense dealing with a number of the missile threats, especially, if to believe Chinese, their maneuvering ballistic missiles capable to hit US aircraft carriers. What is absolutely positive, is the fact of the Chinese missiles being able to hit Guam. 

The question, thus, is not about if the United States will be able to "update" itself for a real war with China--I doubt this will happen, but that's just me, I could be wrong--but the scale of losses, including extremely sensitive politically, the United States will be willing to take. It is one thing to start getting coffins arriving daily in large numbers (anyone really thinks the US is capable to fight China in China proper in a large protracted combined arms war?), totally another--starting losing ships, capital ones, as a result of such a kinetic option. Especially when the US will run out of stand-off weapons. Mind you, China is the size of US lower 48 and, unlike some "mighty" Arab militaries, actually has a fairly good Air Defense system which will be able to do a decent job in protecting those energy streams from Russia, while unleashing North Korea at South with a single purpose of making US forces there miserable. And then there is Russia... Russia, Russia, Russia. You can bet you ass on Russia not allowing China to collapse and Russia does have tools to do so. After all, Russians are royally pissed off at the United States and may (and most likely will) decide at some point that Noblesse Oblige doesn't apply anymore and, apart from making sure China has all necessary energy to sustain the fight against the US, she may exhibit a "strategic flexibility" and provide China not only with a world class intelligence and reliable targeting, but actually, recall Korea and Vietnam. In the end, China is an enormous and lucrative market not only for Russian energy but advanced technology too. Markets must be protected and Russian-Chinese trade is order of magnitude larger than Russian-American one. 

But speaking broadly,  the American political class' insanity, which resulted from losing US status as premier global industrial powerhouse and self-proclaimed "finest fighting force in history" is a first sign of the dawning if not of the realization then of the sense of a final departure which there are no peaceful and sensible solutions left to stop it, only desperate "kinetic" options which will result in US military defeat and collapse of the dollar-based international financial system. Or rather dramatic acceleration thereof. In this case no amount of strategizing and conceptualizing will help, because in the end it is the ability to produce tangibles, from steel and food with medicine, not credit ratings (fraudulent as they are) or virtual worthless money, which win those kinetic options and that ship for the United States sailed long ago. Remarkably, the sailing of this ship was hailed as yet another American "victory", which it was not.      

Siluanov Sings A Song.

Among most hated people in Russia who are associated closely with a catastrophe of 1990s and the so called "liberal" reforms, and who still remain important government figures, two stand out. One is a chairman of Russia's Central Bank Elvira Nabiulina and Russia's Finance Minister Anton Siluanov. I omit here all kinds of freaks such as German Gref or Anatoly Chubais who are not government employees, nor Alexei Kudrin is really a person who decides much at his position of a Chairman of the Accounting Chamber, albeit, he is an excellent auditor and that, realistically, is where he should remain. Anton Siluanov, however, is a permanent fixture of Russian government for years and years and he is a designated main "liberal" there. It is more remarkable then to hear such admissions from him such as this (made around 10 days ago) in his interview to Vedomosti: 

"Лет пять назад, если бы нефть Urals стоила дешевле 15 долларов - то есть бюджет не получает ни копейки нефтегазовых доходов, - это был бы кризис. А сейчас на нефть уже не так обращают внимание, потому что мы создали необходимые финансовые буферы и даже при цене 10 долларов проживем. Это прошлая война, и к ней мы подготовлены, а сегодня перед нами вызов абсолютно нового масштаба.... cейчас перед нами новые задачи – защита здоровья и жизни людей"

Translation: About five years ago, if Urals brand of oil would have had a price of $15--meaning the the budget wouldn't have received a cent of oil-gas profits--that would have been crisis. Nowadays, we don't pay attention to oil that much, because all necessary financial buffers have been created and even with the price of $10 per barrel we would have survived. That is the past war and we are prepared to it, today we have a challenge of absolutely new scale... now our main task is defending health and lives of people. 

It is down right fascinating hearing a person with such background speaking in these terms and increasingly changing the modality of this rather new political tune. This change reflects, obviously, a fundamental shift which occurred within Russian political class against the background of COVID-19. Urals, as of now, fluctuates around $29-30 a barrel, a price, which is fairly comfortable for Russia's budget (and economy), not to mention the geopolitical fallout from Saudis shredding their budget while not forgetting to buy US assets, including in US energy. Funny world we all live in. This world being funny, however, does not negate a grim reality, which was predicted, and cannot be denied anymore:

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- American oil producers have cut much more output than you think. Their reaction to market forces has been bigger than official data suggest, and that means the U.S. is actually working alongside Saudi Arabia, Russia and other big oil producers, to help balance oil supply and demand — even if that wasn’t quite what President Donald Trump intended. Two sets of data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration show that crude production is now about 11.6 million barrels a day, down by between 1.2 million and 1.4 million barrels a day, or roughly 10%, from plateau levels reached over the just-ended winter, depending on whether you use the weekly or the monthly numbers.

Just read the whole article and at this stage keep in mind this simple fact that the issue is NOT about if it is now 2.4 million barrels per day the US oil cut--not at all--but if, as also was predicted, the cut will be along the lines of somewhere between 5-6.5 mbpds. That is the issue, once the US will resign to the fact that it is back to being net-importer of energy. The fact is, no matter what President Trump intended, the economic and geopolitical reality is ruthless--it is not affected by lies, spin, misreporting of many Western media, unless we are talking about some segments of Western clueless public, and reality is constituted by a combination and interplay of factors many of which never make out into the light of public attention. Or putting it in simple lingo--Russians became better, much better, capitalists than Americans. They also retained most of skills in running the country with a high level of government intervention, when needed. This is the lesson in adapting which probably will not be learned. In real world silly intentions and faith in a magic ability to wish problems away do not work. Never did, albeit some in US still believe in this "magic", like this moron who passes in the US for "diplomat", who was charged with "fighting" ISIS. 

Asked why the American public should tolerate US involvement in Syria, Special Envoy James Jeffrey points out the small US footprint in the fight against ISIS. "This isn't Afghanistan. This isn't Vietnam. This isn't a quagmire. My job is to make it a quagmire for the Russians."

This is everything one needs to know about US foreign policy both in economic and military terms, but then again, one is free to browse the whole thesis by this cretin here. It is a tour de force of sheer incompetence and delusion. But then again, US has a rich history of supporting all kinds of humanitarian terrorists, so it is not surprising that this glorious tradition is preserved by people like Jeffrey and his ilk. In the end, it is also possible to declare in media anything one wants, facts on the ground be damned. It seems the neocon schizophrenia is a feature of the American political discourse and it will run the US into the ground--in the end, it is not far from its final destination. As one pundit observed:

On a personal level, most of these neoconservatives turned Never-Trumpers are very nice people. I’ve known many of them for years. They are serious about their faith, family, and country, and treat others with respect. But politics isn’t about being nice, it’s about the real impact of policy on people’s lives—both at home and abroad. By any measurable standard, their careers are failures. Their policies have killed, yes, literally killed, hundreds of thousands, and they should not be taken seriously.

Well, he describes here typical psychopaths--a dominant type in US politics and in the world turned upside down, failure IS success, and murder IS a gift of life. After all, many Nazi leaders were excellent family men and cared deeply about their faith, country and treated others with respect. The only difference--they WERE taken seriously by others and ended up on the stand as war criminals, responsible for tens of millions killed. People like Jefferey--and they infest D.C.--may end up helping to kill hundreds of millions, not to speak of billions. In this case, we may, if we survive, state that their careers were a total success.