Who Will Buy Russian Oil And Gas Going Forward?

[ToraToraTora]

Just listening to Sleepy Joe and Lily Von Schtupp on Sky News talking about moving away from Russian gas and oil etc. When this is all over Vlad would have lost the war and most of his customers to boot. I wonder if he envisaged it would go this way.

[ichkeria]

Re the BA:
It's not quite how it happened.
Putin was in local government in St Petersburg in the early Yeltsin years.
He only came to prominence later. What likely happened is that they struck a deal: Yeltsin needed immunity from prosecution for the corruption he engaged in during his presidency. In return Putin was able to advance what was more or less a power grab by the KGB to take over the country. The oligarchs already existed (the Abramovich story I mentioned above is a classic example of how Yeltsin was conplicit in robbing his own people to set up people like Abramovich, Khodorkovsky et al.
What Putin did when he came to power (sooner than expected) was to a deal with them: support me and keep your power and wealth.
Don't support me and you are out.

[ToraToraTora]

ich 12:44, it was like the wild west, gangsters just carving it up.

[Gromit]

Everyone in Russia knew the states’ assets were being plundered by Yeltsin’s mates. By this time he was severely alcoholic and permanently drunk.Putin was brought in from St. Petersburg and was supposed to sort out the corruption. Instead, he just stopped the public finding out about, and got a cut for his services.

[ichkeria]

And the man who hand-picked Putin from that St Petersburg outpost, Anatoly Chubais, has now defected to the west …

Discontent is rife in the FSB. That’s more serious than discontent among the oligarchs. Putin after all is one of the former. He’s their man

[William51]

I do not think he cares which way it all goes. He appears to live in a bubble of out dated ideological lunacy, and simply does what he wants and damn the consequences.