Russia’s economy is smaller and less diverse than the state of New York. People treat Russia as a near-peer when they are in reality a backwater gas station strapped to a cold-war era nuclear triad. The fact that their military can’t defeat ukraine is absolutely baffling, but indicative of how rotten that country has become.

Cutting them off from SWIFT isn’t a nuke in the new financial Cold War. It’s the consequence of the path Russia chose when they started this incredibly stupid invasion.

Framing western reactions to Russian stupidity as “the real mistake” shows that you aren’t paying enough attention. The US threw down the gauntlet against an unimportant Russian invasion to ensure China gets the message that the United States is ready for economic warfare over Taiwan. If that action decreases the likelihood of invasion by just 10-20%, it’s certainly worthwhile.

The Yuan has lost 7% of it's value against the Dollar in the last 3 months. The fact is the Dollar is incredibly strong, it's up over 6% on a year ago. Yes trade in marginal currencies like the Yuan is up because Russia is desperate, they will trade in anything right now, but this is all small change. It's easy to double transactions when they start from such a pitifully small level to start with. Demand for dollars is as high today as ever.

China regularly devalues the Yuan because they want it weaker to boost exports