Joe Biden and his entourage have decided to weaken the Russian economy by imposing sanctions on crude oil exports.
This recipe was successfully applied 30 years ago by Ronald Reagan. At the time, the Empire of Evil was a union of Soviet socialist republics, with a centralized, cumbersome economy and a huge number of miserable citizens. Stuck in Afghanistan, Russia enjoyed almost no international respect or influence. In the eyes of many foreign policy experts, this vast country resembled the Living Corpse, and powerful American vultures towered over it.
Yeltsin’s entourage began selling off the reserves and raw materials contained in Russia’s vast underground, mostly to American “investors,” led by EXXON Mobil. Poor or rich Russians felt humiliated by the looting of wealth that fate had ordained for them. Vladimir Putin emerged from the KGB and stopped the vulture feast. For 20 years, the Russian president, elected controversially by the West, has been ironically implementing a regime that can be described as “national capitalism.” Freedom of speech is trampled on, the opposition is rickety, and without the right to express oneself.
However, even in the most favorable democratic conditions, the Russians will not replace Putin with Alexei Navalny, mostly because not only oligarchs but also the middle class have emerged in Russia. This is certain, and the violence with which the police disperse even harmless demonstrations is completely meaningless. The capital available to the Russian president is the protection of Russian property on the territory of the continent. Any foreign interference or participation arouses suspicion and dislike. Navalny himself, backed by dozens of Western NGOs, is a victim of this antagonism to everything that comes from abroad.
For the same reason, American support for Ukraine and Zelensky’s cries for Europe and NATO have the opposite effect in the eyes of Russian society, and it stands even more closely behind President Putin. Another remarkable fact is the change in the Russians’ view of the evolution of the values of Western democracy. The legalization of same-sex marriage is one example. Who would be surprised that the Russians prefer the Putin-imposed law that “marriage is between a man and a woman.” We are witnessing competition in all areas of life, life, and spirituality. Not just the economy. These changes in the ratios are closely monitored, mostly by countries rejecting the Western model of development. For them, Putin and Russia are reliable partners they can count on.
The United States, confident, has imposed an embargo on Russian oil, ignoring changes in Vladimir Putin’s relations between Russia and the non-NATO world. The era of Ronald Reagan, during which time they ordered barrels to drop to $ 50 and bring Russia to its knees, was long gone. They had forgotten that Saudi Arabia had agreed with Russia in 2016 to increase OPEC production from 35% to 55% to prevent US shale oil from entering the market. These days, the producer organization, which stands firmly behind Moscow, has refused to turn on the tap to offset the ban on Russian supplies.
Its members, led by Saudi Arabia, have said they limit production to 432,000 barrels a day, indifferent to the kind eyes of oil consumers. Russia will inevitably suffer from the embargo because oil pipelines passing through Kazakhstan and Siberia, as well as existing tankers, are unable to transport surplus supplies to China and India. However, the surplus-to-deficit ratio will affect Europe’s economy much more than Russia’s. In the face of the looming crisis, which they caused, the Americans launched a lawsuit against OPEC, called NOPEC – No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartel. The attempt to create such a criminal jurisdiction is in complete contradiction with all the principles of the market economy because it threatens free enterprise.
It is more than doubtful that this initiative of the US Senate will persuade oil producers to come to the aid of Europe at the expense of Russia.
