I do not really want to go political here, but for the world economy Russia skirting sanctions is a good thing. At least for all the countries that sold them things. Like the EU (that just obey the US for their relation with their neighbour ... ) for examples. The counter sanctions of the Russian federation are really bad for a lot of food producers here.

I think that what they really want is to get out of this 'all USD' kind of world economy we live in. Problem is the US cannot afford a big dip in the value of their currencie.

Going in crypto independently of their fiat war is a good thing for random people, we really need to get our currencie independence or we will die in a WW3 currencie war.

The main reason they are war in oil producer countries is because oil is traded in USD, and if it changes, the US will need a lot of oil to fuel their army to take what they cannot buy because of a too low USD, that's also the reason why we cannot destroy ISIS for good, because the US want Syria and Iran under their control because of their oil reserves, and Russia is opposed to that, so they can't go to war like ally against their common enemy.

If Assad was the real problem the OTAN could argue that they need a base in Syria to crush ISIS, and then stay there for years (like the US did in Europe after WW2). The free syrian army should keep quiet and wait for ISIS to be destroyed and let the Syrian, Russian and OTAN army take care of the real thread that are radical islamists, then the country will be under control of both OTAN and Russia as ally. Assad will have to act as a 'good' president or face war against armies that are already on his territory.