While this has affected Russian economy there is even more, much of the National budget and social schemes of Russia was planned on the hope that oil will always stay above 90$..but today with 70$ its sad day for Russiav
The effect of the falling oil prices are offset to Russia, to a large degree, by the falling rouble. Since Russian oil companies account for their profits in roubles (and also their costs are mostly in roubles as well), they haven't been affected all that much.
Conversely, the falling oil prices are much more damaging for the US shale oil companies. Their costs are rather high and they need a much higher oil price just to break even. The fact that the US dollar is raising is a double whammy for them.
All this will make Russia completely standstill and finally Putin will have to accept to the western terms and conditions!
LOL. Yeah, good luck with that.
This is cleary evident in ruble vs bitcoin..imagine just 1% of Russian money into bitcoin!
Didn't Russia ban Bitcoin some time ago?
So how does this affect the US nation? This shale is just new business and maybe could cut profits for few US companies, but on the other hand for russia the falling oil prices wil have severe impact on the social security bills and deficits, which putin will have to transfer upon wealthy oil and other oligarchs so that the streets does not start to riot!