I think you have a pretty good handle on Russia. The natural gas pipeline is probably their biggest weapon. They can threaten to cut off Europe.
Oil is about the only thing Russia has going for it besides wheat and since the wheat crop failed last year they didn’t export any. It all had to be kept for domestic use. Russia has no infrastructure. Most people do not realize that in effect Russia is really a third world country. My brother in law is with the US State dept and has travelled to Russia extensively. He says when you get 50 miles outside Moscow its carts and oxen.
You also have a good source of information. Russia never developed any technology or produced any product after 1991. No even watch or T shirt. Nothing. Russian economy is based totally on the export of oil resources. That is why their Gazprom stategy is de fact the state foreign policy. Anything other is hot air. Russian nomenklatura including with siloviki group controls it. It is like another state. Sometimes a question what matters more Kremlin or Gazprom seems to be a reasonable.
Yes, you can find in Russian press photo of their “highways” that are possible to be used only during the dry season. When it rains such highways turn to a pile of mud. There is also a problem of Russia as a mega trash for anything one can imagine from rusty ships to very dangerous biological substances. But noone seems to care for that. From Lenin onwards the nomenclatura did not care for Russia. They always had money on their mind even when they threatened with their missiles or were selling weapons to any possible terrorist organization, so-called right or left. For them it was no difference. They were just rich class in the communism system. It did not change. Today everything is about money, their personal money. This is what G-m is.