Quote from: Ozero on January 20, 2023, 05:12:37 PM

The war unleashed by the Kremlin against Ukraine has led to the fact that Russia has lost the levers of influence on the world economy, expressed primarily in its energy power. In particular, Europe was able to find new gas suppliers, while the Russian Federation itself fails to find new and commensurate markets. And the introduction of a price cap on Russian oil has led to the fact that the market began to focus on buyers, not sellers. In this connection, the oil influence of the Russian Federation also decreased. This is stated in the material of Yale scientists for Foreign Policy. It is noted: thus, it has already turned out that the world economy no longer needs Russia.

Putins leverage on natural gas no longer exists because the world and most importantly, Europe no longer needs Russian gas. ... Putin no longer profits from gas sales, since his previous supplies were 150 billion cubic meters of gas by pipeline to Europe have been replaced by a measly 16 billion cubic meters to China and pocket money from global LNG sales barely enough to cover costs. Putin has no markets to replace anything close to a shortage, the authors explain material.

At the same time, Putin's oil leverage is also losing power. To which he himself made considerable efforts. Gone are the days of fear that Putin will take Russian oil off the market, causing prices to skyrocket. After all, after the Russian president announced a ban on the supply of the resource to countries that joined the restriction of oil prices in the Russian Federation, "oil prices actually fell."
The situation is very interesting, and in any case it is not in favor of Russia. Putin wanted to recreate a powerful empire, but military aggression, threats and blackmail of the world community led to the fact that he is rapidly destroying his country economically.

In my opinion, economics and geopolitics should not be confused. Geopolitics in general is a very dangerous, aggressive pseudoscience.

A respectable energy supplier must take care of its reputation and the comfort of its customers. Russia had permanent paying customers (European countries, including Ukraine). These clients carried out stable purchases of Russian gas and oil, thereby ensuring a regular flow of foreign currency to the budget.

Yes, perhaps a country like the United States, which was afraid of the political union of Russia and Germany, did not like it very much. In addition, the United States itself entered the market for the sale of liquefied gas (after which Russia became a trade competitor for them).

However, a respectable businessman who does not pay attention to provocations and conscientiously fulfills all his contractual obligations is a very difficult target for the aggression of another country.

At the same time, under no circumstances could this aggression be carried out through a direct military invasion of Russian territory. This risk was zero.