It's not that extreme. They have the BRICS sphere of influence on their side. More likely, the SWIFT sanctions will prove a mistake for "the West," when it rea

It's not that extreme. They have the BRICS sphere of influence on their side. More likely, the SWIFT sanctions will prove a mistake for "the West," when it realizes the downstream effects of cutting off Russia from the dominant payment network of the global reserve currency. Russian banks have already started offering accounts in yuan. This will lead to further balkanization (unfortunate pun notwithstanding) of world reserve currencies, which means increased decentralization and a reduced dependency on the dollar. Eventually the world will naturally diversify their reserve holdings to the point that the dollar loses its power as leverage in diplomatic negotiations. At this point, there will be jockeying for position of a dominant currency, and it will be more than just fiat currency in the race. In the next 5 years, we will almost certainly see the emergence of a central bank digital currency. Within the next 10 years, it will be clear that paper USD will not be the dominant currency in 2040, and it will likely be obvious which currency will take its place. As far as the SSL certs go, all these arguments also apply to balkanization of internet infrastructure. In fact, they'll happen together, since the information networks banning Russians refuse to interface with their payment networks anyway. Is this actually the greatest opportunity for Russian entrepreneurs since the fall of the Soviet Union? Suddenly there is demand for an alternative to every Western online service. The products that were previously 80% as good as their Western counterparts now find themselves as the leading option in the local market. This same pattern happened in China when they introduced The Great Firewall — the censorship regime favored local providers, so they had a route to catch up with the Silicon Valley companies. Now look at the Chinese internet economy. Russia doesn't have nearly the population of China, nor the population growth that China did the past twenty years, but it's not unreasonable to expect significant growth in Russian internet sector over the next 5-10 years (after the dust settles on sanctions and the winners emerge).