Russia has fallen into full-blown depression and faces a mounting fiscal crisis as oil and gas revenues plummet.

Output from country’s state-owned gas giant Gazprom has collapsed by 19% over the past year as demand shrivels in Europe, falling to levels not seen since the creation of the company at the end of the Cold War.

Gazprom alone generates a tenth of Russian GDP and a fifth of all budget revenues. It will be several years at best before the country benefits from a new pipeline deal with China.

Russia is already in dire straits right now. The economy has contracted by 4.9% over the past year and the downturn is certain to drag on as oil prices crumble after a tentative rally. Half of Russia’s tax income comes from oil and gas.

Core inflation is running at 16.7% and real incomes have fallen by 8.4% over the past year, a far deeper cut to living standards than occurred following the Lehman crisis. This time there is no recovery in sight as Western sanctions remain in place and US shale production limits any rebound in global oil prices.

Greek premier Alexis Tsipras faced a furious backlash from own Syriza party last night (7/13) after yielding to draconian demands from Europe’s creditor powers, and agreeing to let foreign supervisors to take control of his country.

The terms imposed after marathon talks through the night on Sunday (7/12) are far harsher than those rejected by Greek voters in a landslide referendum a week ago, and risks shattering democratic consent in Greece. It has left Europe bitterly divided along North-South lines of cleavage, severely testing the political cohesion of monetary union.

“Greece has been devastated and humiliated. Europe has showed itself Pharisaical, incapable of leadership and solidarity,” said Romano Prodi, the former Italian prime minister.

An independent fund will take control of €50 billion of Greek state assets, collateral to prevent Syriza reneging on the deal at a later date. Three-quarters of this will be sued to recapitalize the Greek banks and repay debt.

International inspectors will have the power to veto legislation. The Radical-Left Syriza government will be forced to repeal a raft of laws passed since it took power in January, stripping away the last fig leaf of sovereignty. It is unconditional surrender to Germany. Greece may now explode.

Like a tragedy from Euripides, the long struggle between Greece and Europe's creditor powers is reaching a cataclysmic end that nobody planned, nobody seems able to escape, and that threatens to shatter the greater European order in the process.

Greek premier Alexis Tsipras called Sunday’s (7/05) referendum with the expectation - and intention - of losing it. To his party’s consternation, it won, igniting the great Greek revolt of 2015, the moment when the people finally issued a primal scream, daubed their war paint, and formed the hoplite phalanx.

Events are now spinning out of control. The banks remain shut. The ECB has maintained its liquidity freeze, and through its inaction is asphyxiating the banking system.

Factories are shutting down across the country as stocks of raw materials run out and containers full of vitally-needed imports clog up Greek ports. Companies cannot pay their suppliers because external transfers are blocked. Private scrip currencies are starting to appear as firms retreat to semi-barter outside the banking system.

Yet if Greece is in turmoil, so is Europe. Don’t be surprised if Europe starts begging America once again to save it from a disaster of its own making.

While all Western eyes remain firmly focused on Greece, a potentially much more significant financial crisis is developing on the other side of world.

In some quarters, it’s already being called China’s 1929 – the year of the most infamous stock market crash in history and the start of the economic catastrophe of the Great Depression.

In the past three weeks, the Chinese stock market has lost $3 trillion, while Beijing’s interventions to stem the panic have been unsuccessful.

Yet the pantomime of the Greek debt talks, together with the tragi-comedy of will they/won’t they leave the euro, has relegated the story to little more than a footnote - even though 1,400 companies, some 40%, have now suspended trading on China’s two main indices.

The parallels with 1929 are, on the face of it, uncanny. As are those with Wile E. Coyote.