New Strategy Center publishes a new study titled “A Treasury Built Upon (Black) Gold: Russia’s Petroleum Dilemma amid Sanctions”, authored by NSC expert Horia Ciurtin.

The analysis highlights the Russian Federation’s instrumentalisation of the energy “weapon” as a means to change the negotiation framework with the West over the Ukraine conflict, focusing on Moscow’s oil exports.

In this respect, the study highlights the central position that the economic exploitation of this resource has in establishing a reliable budgetary year, and, as a result, in financing the war effort. At the same time, the analysis considers the effect of the sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union and their allies on the economic ‘geography’ of oil exports, highlighting the alteration of traditional supply chains and the reconfiguration of the way in which the Russian Federation operates on global energy markets, in the context of a quantitative and qualitative metamorphosis of privileged destinations.

At the geo-economic level, the study addresses the medium- and long-term strategic sustainability of such a new export model – with a significant increase in volumes shipped to China, India, Turkey, and a few other circumstantial recipients – at a time when Moscow’s interdependence with its Asian partners is not a comfortable development in the face of considerable discounts and a price ceiling that is expected at the G7 level.

The study can be accessed here:

A Treasury Built Upon (Black) Gold: Russia’s Petroleum Dilemma amid Sanctions