Can the west slaughter Putin's sacred cash cow?
Allies of the Ukrainian president, Voldymyr Zelenskiy, say Vladimir Putin will only accept a compromise on Ukraines future neutrality if he is facing a credible threat to his economic power base by a rapid and permanent exclusion of Russias oil and gas exports from its lucrative European markets. The Russian government receives 40% of its budget revenues from energy exports.
(snip)
He said: Until European leaders understand Putin sees them as a weak and easy victims in his geopolitical strategy, he will continue doing what he is doing. That is why the only way to prove Putin wrong is to put on a full-scale energy embargo. Europe has to play a different game and say we know we can cope without Russia. It has to say we are large economies, and with a different energy mix we can cope because for us it is a matter of principle. It has to say we are putting an end to this right now and you Russians will lose our market forever. That poses an existential threat for Russia.
Kobolyev has negotiated with Putin and his energy barons, and insists he knows their mindset. He believes the Russian president will face their wrath, and that of the FSB security service, if they feel Putin totally miscalculated not only Ukrainian resistance, but the wests willingness to make the sacrifices to wean themselves off Russian energy, and so blow a massive long-term hole in the Russian budget.
It would also upend all the assumptions of the Russian energy elite around Putin, such as Igor Sechin, the boss of Rosneft. Sechin, like Putin, is highly conservative on issues such as climate change. He remains convinced absolute oil consumption will increase by 10% by 2040 and by 20% in Asia. Kobolyev says it would be a complete shock to Sechin if his most profitable market just disappeared overnight. Their sacred cash cow would have been killed.
(snip)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/14/west-putin-sacred-cash-cow-russia-ukraine-gas