Vladimir Putin: Why he Fears a Hillary Clinton White House ~ Newsweek
VLADIMIR PUTIN: WHY HE FEARS A HILLARY CLINTON WHITE HOUSE
BY LEAH MCGRATH GOODMAN ON 11/3/16 AT 8:10 AM
EXCERPTS:
Russia depends on its revenue from oil and gas for more than half of its federal budget, according to its Ministry of Finance. That, combined with weak energy prices in recent years and Russia being stuck in its longest recession in two decades, leaves the country and Putin in a very precarious position. Much of its petroleum export revenue comes from countries in the European Union, many of which are U.S. allies. Mindful of this, Clinton told Deutsche Bank in October 2014, “I want to export gas, especially to our friends in order to undercut, in Europe’s case, the pressure from Russia.”
Moscow is well aware of this vulnerability. As Clinton noted in mid-2014, Russian state-owned company Gazprom was taking over strategic energy infrastructure across Europe, including its largest underground gas storage facility in Germany and engaging in what she called “pure power politics.”
“That’s why, as secretary of state, starting in March 2009, I pushed the Europeans to get serious about finding alternative energy sources and to invest in real resources in their infrastructure, so they wouldn’t be at Putin’s mercy,” she said in the July 2014 speech. March 2009 was also when Clinton presented her Russian counterpart with a symbolic “reset” button in what turned out to be an ill-fated attempt at mending relations.
Why would Clinton pursue a Russian reset while embarking on an energy war? A speech in April 2014 reveals a possible reason: While secretary of state, she witnessed an abuse of power by Putin so severe it led to civilian deaths. “I cannot say I saw this coming, but what I saw was that in 2006 in January, he cut off gas to Eastern Europe. I think like a dozen people froze to death in Poland,” she said. “He did it again in 2009, primarily focused on Ukraine. He has used his energy as a weapon to intimidate Europe.”
Clinton’s speeches even outlined where pipelines would need to be built to ease Europe off its Russian oil and gas fix, including sites in the former Soviet Russia. “How far this aggressiveness goes I think is really up to us,” she said in March 2014. “I would like to see us accelerating the development of pipelines from Azerbaijan up into Europe. I would like to see us looking for ways to accelerate the internal domestic production.”
MORE IN LINK: http://www.newsweek.com/vladimir-putin-hillary-clinton-energy-oil-natural-gas-ukraine-europe-fracking-516397
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