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.