Scratch the surface of any of Russia’s aggressive moves and petroleum is usually at the bottom of it.
Putin’s primary geopolitical strategy is to control Europe’s energy. He has blocked pipelines to KSA/Qatar, will block any pipeline to Israel/Egypt, and is currently working on Ukraine. He’s just a drug dealer defending his corner.
It’s not just the offshore reserves, there’s also potential gas fields underneath some of the areas Russia now occupies. And almost all of Ukraine’s industrial capacity was located in the Donbas area. This war has been a disaster for Ukraine from which they will never recover.
Russia cannot do jacksh#t with those reserves because they don’t have the technical expertise.
After the invasion, Schlumberger, Hughes and all their buddies left Russia. There is no way the Russians can even keep their current infrastructure running. The eastern oil fields feeding China are the toughest nut to crack. And, without foreign services companies, those fields will just dry up and blow away.
Damn. That oil and gas was Hunter Biden’s birthright.
He and Pedo Peter had only just started to monetize it.
Bkmk
They sure were calm about it back then. Russia took Crimea and they hardly batted an eye. Neither did the government. One reason I don’t trust the whole Ukraine fiasco this time around. It always smelled funny to me.