If you hadn't heard, there have been some banking issues in the news, as in the cascading collapse of the Western banking system.
Following Silicone Valley Bank in California and Signature Bank in New York, the contagion spread to Europe, threatening even Swiss bank Credit Suisse.
It seems like the entire Western world is on the verge of a new financial crisis.
Governments are scrambling to prevent it. They are ready to print more money, push inflation higher, and push interest rates to new heights!
Of course, since that tinkering is arguably what caused the issue in the first place, it will make the crash that much worse when it comes.
However, there's one industrialized nation that looks like they'll be happily sitting out the hard times ahead:
Russia.
You see, the economic sanctions against Russia for invading Ukraine all but cut the nation off from the banks of the Western world.
Now, the Kremlin is spinning the blockade as a fire wall against the instability issues springing up.
"Our banking system has certain connections with some segments of the international financial system, but it is mostly under illegal restrictions from the collective West," the spokesperson for Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, said. "We are, to a certain extent, insured against the negative impact of the crisis that is now unfolding overseas."
[Insert diabolical laughter here.]
Of course, Russia is not the world superpower it once was. The crumbling nation has a GDP equal to about Florida (which makes you wonder why the politicians are so obsessed with making it seem like Germany in the 1930s), and it still has not fully recovered from the 2008 recession.
The sanctions have worked in other ways, and depending on whose propaganda you listen you, Russia might be closer to collapse than you think:
Indeed, aluminum oligarch Oleg Deripaska told the Krasnoyarsk Economic Forum in Siberia that Russia "will need foreign investors" as its funds were running low, Bloomberg reported on March 2.
"There will be no money already next year," Deripaska said, per the media outlet.
The Kremlin did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
