2) A New Chinese Empire

The commercial excommunication of Russia has left it heavily dependent on China, which has alternated between blaming the West for the conflict, distancing itself from Russia, refusing to call the invasion an invasion, and expressing grief over civilian casualties while calling for peace. Rhetorical waffling aside, China continues to trade with Russia, and Beijing is strongly considering taking a stake in Russian energy giants left in the cold by Western corporations.

Russia and China were getting closer even before the Ukraine crisis. Since Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014, Russian-Chinese trade has risen by 50 percent, according to Michael Cembalest, the chair of market and investment strategy at J.P. Morgan Asset Management. “Russia is now Beijing’s largest recipient of state sector financing,” Cembalest writes, pointing out that China and Russia began using their own currencies to settle bilateral trade in 2010 and “opened a currency swap line in 2014, sharply reducing reliance” on the U.S. dollar.

Add it all up, and it looks like China could become the counterpart of last resort for Russia. This would make Russia something like a giant North Korea. Since 2010, that rogue nation has relied on China for roughly 90 percent of its total trade. One plausible scenario, then, is that Putin’s failed attempt to expand the Russian empire grows the Chinese empire, as Russia clings to China to avoid economic ruin.