From The BBC:
In recent years, Russia has enjoyed unforeseen riches as a result of a huge rise in revenues from oil and gas exports. The BBC's James Rodgers in Moscow reports on what this wealth has done to the country, and what it means for its future.
Of course, this is a commercial dispute, but you have to understand what that means in a country where the line between politics and business is not clear.
In some places it is broad, blurred and easy to cross. In others, it disappears.
Before he became President, Dmitry Medvedev combined the chairmanship of Gazprom, the giant Russian gas company, with his role as Russia's first deputy prime minister.
Read more ....
My Comment: Form the outside looking in, when quickly develops the wrong impression of Russia. One has the impression that Russia's oil wealth is making it a super power again, with gleaming missiles, huge public works projects, and a proud and determined people. In reality .... the opposite is happening. The oil wealth goes to only a few, and for the rest of Russia (98%) they get the leftovers.
The financial crisis has hit home, with millions not working. Inflation has reared its ugly head, and the ruble with the Russian stock market has completely collapsed. The military (with the exception of Russia's nuclear forces) is a paper tiger, and Russia's demographic implosion coupled with an aids epidemic is devastating the Russian population.
Oil and energy prices are also in free fall, and new foreign investment in Russia's energy industry has dried up. I am not even going to mention the endemic problems of crime, government corruption, and a stifling bureaucracy that squeezes small businesses and investment.
Rise of political fortune .... my relatives in Russia have a different take on that.
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