Alasdair Macleod, Michael Wood & Patrick Highsmith return. The financial war between Russia, with China’s tacit backing on one side, and America and her NATO allies, on the other, has escalated rapidly. It appears that President Putin was thinking several steps ahead when he launched Russia’s attack on Ukraine. We have seen sanctions fail. We have seen Russia achieve record export surpluses. We have seen the ruble become the strongest currency on the foreign exchanges. We are seeing the West enter a new round of European monetary inflation to pay everyone’s energy bills. The euro, yen, and sterling are already collapsing — the dollar will be next. From Putin’s point of view, so far, so good. Russia, has progressed her power over Asian nations, including populous India and Iran, and has persuaded Middle Eastern oil and gas producers that their future lies with Asian markets, not Europe. Russia is subsidizing Asia’s industrial revolution with discounted energy. Thanks to the West’s sanctions, Russia is on its way to confirming Halford Mackinder’s predictions made over a century ago, that Russia is the true geopolitical center of the world. There is one piece in Putin’s jigsaw yet to be put in place: a new currency system to protect Russia and her allies from an approaching western monetary crisis. Alasdair believes and will explain why he thinks Putin is now assembling a new gold-backed, multi-currency system by combining plans for a new Asian trade currency with his new Moscow World Standard for gold. Michael Wood will talk of Reyna Gold Corporation’s emerging gold discovery in Mexico and Patrick is expected to comment on drill results that could launch a share price moonshot for Timberline Resources.