The United States intensifies the war in Ukraine and opens up a new world situation

Russia’s current account surplus is expected to exceed $ 250 billion in 2022, due to the record price of oil and gas, of which it is the world’s largest producer and exporter.

In February and March alone, Russia reached a current account surplus of $ 39 billion, which in March it would have risen to over 45,000 million dollars (Institute of International Finance / IIF).

That is why the ruble has appreciated by more than 40% since February of this year (when the invasion of Ukraine took place); and Gazprom, the largest energy company in the Russian Federation, has made profits of over $ 25 billion in the past two months, which is the largest in its history.

It should be added that the Central Bank of Moscow it recovered all reserves that had been frozen by the United States after the invasionand now they rise again to $ 658,000 million.

At the same time, the Russian Central Bank decided to cut interest rates in Julyreducing them by 150 points compared to those of June, which means bringing them from 9.5% per year to 8% per year.

This is why the inflation rate fell from 17.1% per annum in May to 15.9% in Junewith inflation forecast to fall by more than 15% by the end of the year in 2022.

As a result, the ruble fell to R $ 58 per dollar, after reaching an all-time high of R $ 150 per dollar immediately following the February invasion of Ukraine.

The Russian military airbase of Saki in Ukraine, located more than 200 kilometers from the nearest Ukrainian positions, received six supersonic missiles six days ago that destroyed nine of its advanced fighter-bombers, while the Moscow command multiplies the evidence that your forces are under attack from state-of-the-art weapons; and that the Himar missile system, which has a range of 300 kilometers and the ability to sink some of the large cruisers in the Black Sea fleet, has become the focus of enemy artillery, all unequivocally in evidence over the past two weeks.

The Putin government’s diagnosis of the significance of this change in the strategic conditions of the main battlefields is unequivocal: US and NATO, which is the enemy they face mainly in the war in Ukraine, the conflict escalatedand has decided to directly involve its main military forces, which implies a qualitative change in the characteristics of the conflict that is unfolding in the heart of Europe.

Henry Kissinger warned what this change implies, noting in the recent interview with the “Wall Street Journal” that: “We are on the verge of a war with Russia and China over problems we have partially caused, and we do so with no concept of how it will go. end, or where it should lead us. “

Faced with this new situation, the Russian army, after consolidating the conquest of the Donbass region, located in the south-east of Ukraine and where over 80% of the population speaks Russian, has adopted a completely defensive strategywhich implies leaving the initiative to the US / NATO.

A little over a month ago, presenting his latest book on “Leadership” in crisis situations, Henry Kissinger warned that in August / September of this year, and urgently, The United States would be forced to escalate the warwith the direct participation of its Armed Forces, or, on the contrary, it would be forced to admit its strategic defeat against Russia, with the inexorable consequences that this would have on the balance of forces in the world, both in Europe and in Asia.

Now the United States, with President Joe Biden at the helm, has implemented that unavoidable option, or one that amounts to the same thing, the dice of the power game in the world have been rolled againand as always, with an irreversible sense.

In this context, time appears as the decisive strategic factor – “… lost space can be recovered, but lost time is never recovered”, says Napoleon -, and plays in Putin’s favor in two fundamental aspects: in Europe, where winter is approaching, Russian gas begins to disappear and Germany, the world’s third largest manufacturing power, sinks into recession at the end of the year; and in the United States, where Joe Biden is the weakest president in US history since the 1930s, and over 80% of Americans, regardless of political party, believe the country is wrong.

This happens when Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan offered China an extraordinary historical opportunity to irreversibly change the “status quo” of the island, accelerating the process of national reunification, converted into an objective in view of deadlines and conditions.

Everything indicates that 2022/2023 becomes, in one sense or another, in a strategically decisive phase of the 21st century. Optimism and pessimism are anachronistic categories, the essential thing is to note that it is a privilege to live in this time.