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I'm glad to hear a correction to my information.

A quick Google reveals that Russia's petroleum amounts to about 30% of GNP and mining another 11%. I don't know how much more is natural gas?

For the USA petroleum is about 17% and mining about 15%.

Here is an old article (looks like 2014) that suggests:

It is hard to put a number on this, but by various estimates it has ranged between 10 and 13 percent of GDP in recent years. So our overall figure is now up to 67—70 percen

What do you make of this analysis?

Would you not say that Russia's "very conservative fiscal policy" is very much dictated by the price of oil? No oil revenue no possibility to spend. Nevertheless, he has increased the military-hardly a libertarian bent.

I hope you are right about the courts, I've never heard of such a thing I am dependent on headlines which show the jailing of some oligarchs and the murder of others as well as reporters, and so forth.

Do we know whether his flat income tax of 13% is a product of libertarian philosophy or is it simply a way of keeping a lot of money in the pockets of his apparatchiks and crony oligarchs?

Finally, my impression of Putin is very much conditioned by his behavior in Georgia, Crimea, Ukraine, Syria and Iran. Again, I do not see this in libertarian terms but as historically consistent with Russian history.

Your thoughts? I think you are probably much more informed than I am so I would really like to know your thoughts.

Any suggestions arguing official numbers are mostly speculations. All they do are saying ‘You can’ t trust anything coming out of Russia! ‘ and that is all.

The greatest indicator is a GDP comparison between Russia and traditional oil countries like Saudi Arabia, Norway and Venezuela.

All four had their GDP floating around $200 billion in late 1990s.

By 2013 Russia was in top ten by nominal GDP at above $2 thrillion. Where were the rest all with much smaller populations to spread the oil wealth around, without costly diplomacy and military Russia has? All their economies combined wouldn’t make near it.

Just that simple fact puts the end to a gas station myth.

Conservative fiscal policies are dating back the beginning of Putin’s first term and continuous despite oil market fluctuations.

As for jailed oligarchs what do you know about their cases apart from opinions from partisan media? Do you believe these oligarchs are saints? That’s quite funny.

The same about journalists. They get killed sometimes and it is not really right to link every case to the government. Especially without any facts behind accusations aside from speculations by partisan media as in the oligarchs’ case.

As for Georgia and the rest I see nothing expansionist and anti-libertarian in that.
Russian intervention in Georgia at the very least justified by indiscriminate killing of 60 Russian troops by the Georgian forces during the latter’s Ossetian offensive. The troops weren’t invaders. They were placed there by OSCE to which Georgia a part of to prevent the Georgian genocide of Osetians.

Syria is a long time ally. And it is closer to Russian border than Boston to Washington DC. Syria is one of a few secular countries in the region and it is common interest not to let militant Islam take root there.