Wealthy and powerful who wanted us to replace Yanukovich in Ukraine are learning they were wrong.

[1StrongBlackMan]

23. Isn't ...

I don't know about this you wrote: Russia is going to "...default on loans taken out from western banks". I don't believe that. What I do believe is that they will call their loans they have made to prop up the western banks, or at least quit loaning the nearly bankrupt western banks any more oil dollars.

One, perhaps both, of us should re-read the article because this:

Russian firms and banks would also not return loans from American financial institutions, he said.

is what I read.

Though, as you discuss, the article did speak to Russia going off the US Dollar as the benchmark currency. Remember the last country that started making noise about doing that? The world economic communities rejected the idea (and there was a US "military adventure" that commenced about that time ... but I'm certain that was just a coincidence! )

I suspect that the world economies, including China, "trusts" the dollar (and the underlying western banking system) more than Russian currency, and the underlying, though western dependent, Russian banking system.

Lastly, China is unlikely to support anything that significantly damages the US dollar because it holds far to much US paper ... they would be hurting their own investment to what end?