Chapter 2 - The Russian Devolution

Russia is the world’s largest petrostate where a third of the country’s total economy comes from one company: Gazprom. Because its significance in the country’s economy is so big, “Russian diplomacy quickly became synonymous with Gazprom diplomacy. This video is on Gazprom reducing energy shipments to Belarus by 45%. This act alienated Belarus, Russia's main ally in the former Soviet Union, who resorted to siphoning oil from a pipeline bound to Europe so that they can resist the doubling fees Gazprom demanded.

“Gazprom is Russia’s largest urban and rural land owner, builds roads and hospitals, and sponsors sports centers – all things the Kremlin never did (p.12)” and Medvedev (the company’s chairman) is Russia’s next president. This is a picture of the Gazprom hockey team in blue (http://www.onfrozenblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/gazprom-group-photo.JPG).

Even though Russia controls more natural resources than U.S., EU and China combined, 2/3 of Russians live near the poverty line, there are no advances in military equipment, and it struggles with its labour pool with staggering population collapses. Most of Russia’s trade and energy exports go to Europe but now that Europe is expanding its supply to elsewhere, Europe’s power over Russia rises. Russia needs European investment to keep going. Therefore, maybe by joining the EU is the only thing Russia can do to save the country.