Writes Luis P. Almeida:

Hi Lew,

Here is the transcript to a speech Putin gave, yesterday. 

This for me was the most interesting bit: 

The illegitimate freezing of some of the currency reserves of the Bank of Russia marks the end of the reliability of so-called first-class assets. In fact, the US and the EU have defaulted on their obligations to Russia. Now everybody knows that financial reserves can simply be stolen. And many countries in the immediate future may begin – I am sure this is what will happen – to convert their paper and digital assets into real reserves of raw materials, land, food, gold and other real assets which will only result in more shortages in these markets.

At this point, Putin is simply stating the obvious.