Commentary Vladimir Putin’s imperial Ukrainian gambit is accelerating Communist China’s colonization of Russia. Irony is what irony does. In exchange for whatever chunks of territory Putin might ultimately grab in Ukraine—certainly Donetsk and Luhansk, perhaps Odessa—Putin is now being forced to mortgage resources to China ranging from oil and gas to aluminum. As Putin further accelerates its bid to “de-dollarize” to evade U.S. sanctions, the Russian ruble is also becoming increasingly tied to the Chinese yuan. The stakes for the West in this seismic geopolitical shift are high. Despite losing its socialist republics, Russia still contains almost twice as much territory as either China or the United States; and Russia is pivotal to China’s “Belt and Road” initiative to control the Eurasian landmass. Russia also controls the world’s largest oil reserves, the second largest coal reserves, 40 percent of the world’s natural gas, one-fifth of its timber, and an abundance of other minerals and metals such …