This has happened in the past (a few decades ago). I remember a story from a business professor about how they forced some companies to make their factories there, and then they just took over them. Putin is quickly moving to turn Russia into another China. Before we know it, I think they'll require every foreign business to give 51 percent ownership to the state, if they want to do business there.

How is this "moving to turn Russia into another China"? While China has been pushing the economic reform agenda and cracking down on SOEs -- as was seen at the report of the Third Plenum -- Russia is going in the opposite direction with things like this. In China you don't have to give any ownership to the state. Just setup a WFOE (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wholly_Foreign-Owned_Enterpris...). Yes, you have to jump through a lot more hoops than setting up a business in the west but, speaking from having done it, it's not that hard. And yes there are certain sectors you can't participate in; but, pretty much every country on the planet has restricted sectors. Even the US: just look at the defence industry. China has been working opening these up while Russia has been been closing these. A good recent example for China is the recent reduction in rice self sufficiency. Plus compared to Russia, China is rather stable, prosperous, and corruption free. It would serve Russia well to become a bit more like China -- but this move is not it.

I think it's absolutely amazing that you would call China corruption free, even in contrast to Russia.

Transparency International rates perceived public-sector corruption in 175 countries. China ranks at 80, Russia 127, USA 19, Canada 9, New Zealand and Denmark tied for first place. Contrast China with Hong Kong at 15.

http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2013/results/

Putting in place measures to avoid being screwed over by Washington's control of payments infrastructure is not "moving to turn Russia into another China". It's being smart and pragmatic.

Visa and MasterCard have been working in Russia for years, apparently unmolested judging from their joint market share. Now they are being turned into weapons by US politicians .... again. This is a huge, massive trend in US politics: seizing control of power points in the financial system and squeezing them as part of proxy wars against people, countries or classes of businesses they don't like (see Operation Choke Point).

As someone in Europe, I don't see this as Russia becoming communist. I see it as Putin standing up for his country and I wish the EU would do the same, instead of allowing SWIFT to be turned into a tool of the US Treasury.

How has the world come to this point? Sympathy for evil abroad and apathy to evil at home, what happened to those who stood for truth and justice? Freedom and liberty? Do our values mean nothing to us anymore? We in the West have failed ourselves tremendously. There will be selective, endless protest from when our nations commit wrongdoings, but to be sympathetic to causes of evil that occurs outside our reach; feigning an "objective" view to give doubt to the corrupt; engaging in Whataboutism when it comes to any serious discussion; the attitude and naiveté of Europeans and Americans today absolutely disgusts me.

Putin is abusing his power changing the constitution so he can prop his regime up, crushing his opposition, jailing journalist, spreading propaganda, significant restrictions on free speech, implementing extreme protectionist measures in business and culture, illegal invasions, doing business with the worst violators of human rights. It is so sad that the Russians who want to do best for their nation are not able to speak their mind for fear of jail or death.

Russia is an extremely ignorant and backwards country, from my view. Just a few days ago people held rallies in Red Square for May Day (http://spectrumhr.org/?p=1972). There was lots of racism (sign calling Obama a black monkey), ignorance, misogyny (sign denouncing feminist), praising a rapist sociopath (http://www.suomensotilas.fi/en/artikkelit/change-game), honoring corrupt mass murders, etc.

The only thing Putin stands to fulfill is power and ego.

Absolutely -- Russia is an oligarchy where the ruling class are the only ones with a chance at being successful. If anyone else is successful, they use the law as a weapon to either seize their business on the basis of trumped up charges (Yukos?) or to heavily regulate the market such that their ventures are the only ones that can succeed.

Geopolitically, Russia is trying to establish an "alternative" to the US/EU-centric global economy that's basically a free-market version of the Soviet Union. That way they can use their military and intelligence services to pressure their neighbors (Ukraine and others) into participating in this alternate economy where the money flows through Russia instead of the US and EU.

Combine the two and you can see their ambitions: Putin and his allies just want to get rich. And if you live in Russia, they can throw you in jail for pretty much no reason, so I wouldn't mess with them.

You're completely missing the point here. Have you read the article?

"The law on a national payment system, which seeks to guarantee uninterrupted service of payments in Russia by foreign payment systems and prevent them from cutting services to Russian clients, as Visa and MasterCard did in response to U.S. sanctions in March."

Visa and MasterCard cut their local intra-Russian services "because of the U.S: sanctions"(!) Note that both these named Visa and MasterCard aren't "American Visa and MasterCard." The ones operating in Russia had to be registered as Russian companies to provide the services at all. So it's Russian companies (they are daughter companies, but legally independent except for brand, initial investments, connecting to the international infrastructure etc) cutting their own services to Russians because of the external political influences.

It's totally reasonable to adjust the laws to make it harder for such Russian companies to do such things in Russia.

> Combine the two and you can see their ambitions: Putin and his allies just want to get rich.

When I combine the two I see a Putin who wants freedom from the dependance on a globalized economy that is largely run by western powers. I doubt Putins end goal has anything to do with "just" getting rich.

What you said ain't got nothing to do with what the article is about. Read the fucking article first!

The Visa and MasterCard named in the article must be Russian-based Visa and the Russian-based MasterCard. They operate under the Russian laws, pay Russian taxes, otherwise wouldn't be able to operate there. They made themselves unreliable by, per article:

"cutting services to Russian clients (...) in response to U.S. sanctions in March."

So it's the opposite of your claim 1). The answer to your claim 2) is that the given money amounts "equivalent to the value of two days of (their) transactions processed in Russia."

Your claim 3) is confusing. Visa and MasterCard are already de-facto standard: they "together service about 90 percent of payments in Russia."

(all quotes from the article)