Now he has all thee frightened kids driving back home. Russia will have lost by the time the military tracks them down. But Putin is isolating Russia, prepping for internal civil war. The war is about the Dutch disease problem. Russian always getting stuck as the oil producer. It is high margin for them, little value added. But security costs grow in extract oil farther east and sending it east.
Ukraine was the better export path.. I guess that was the ultimate aim, control pipelines through the Ukraine. Putin lost Syria, return all its military and Israel bombed their empty bases, so Russiais is not coming back and Assad is on his own.
il delivery has high cost, it goes south or east out the Black Seat on tankers. Russia is not ready to build more pipelines to China.
He is screwed on gas sales, having blocked the European market. His next market is to pipe it to the Persian gulf and India can load it on tankers. This all cuts down margin. Iran or Iraq will want a cut. Putin kind of screwed Russia pretty bad.
Natural gas is everywhere and its major cost is pipeline. There are too many pipeline routes for the Russian military to manage. We have the same deal protecting oil fields in the middle east. Russia has an intenal problem with energy stability hence the continuing wars with all the stans.
Putin war, Chechnya, Baltic, Ukraine, Syria have all been over pipeline and energy distribution. A severe case of Dutch Disease.
