“” “” Anytime the price of oil/natural gas goes up the Russians make money. Their whole economy is based primarily on oil and gas exports. “” “”
Not really. Russian energy sector is just slightly larger than of US in terms of share of overall economy.
It is true that oil sales USED TO BE a major source of government revenue based on disproportional taxation of that sector in Russia but it is not true anymore as well.
Really, I didn’t realize that their economy had diversified that much.
I guess I should know. My company is now buying hundreds of container loads a year of Russian Spruce lumber. We were NOT doing this 5 years ago. A lot of Russian lumber is going to the middle east and China. In China it has displaced much of the Swedish/Finish and German/Austrian lumber.