Comments by "Paul Aiello" (@paul1979uk2000) on "Why the Russian Economy Is in Deep Trouble" video.

Considering Russia is being propped up by billions in oil and gas revenues and Russia is having to eat into a lot of it's reserve and even with all that, it's got one of the highest inflation rates and the economy is performing badly compared to western countries. Things don't look good for Russia because eventually those reserves are going to run out, in time, EU countries will diversify away from Russian oil and gas and even thought China and India are buying more oil and gas from Russia, they are getting it dirt cheap which isn't good for Russia and even then, it's very likely that once the EU countries diversify away from Russia, the EU and US are going to put a lot of pressure on countries that are buying cheap oil and gas from Russia, the idea being is to isolate Russia. Throw in that Russia invasion of Ukraine must be costing them a fortune and it doesn't look like they are making much if any progress in the country, things don't look good for Russia. Time isn't on Russia side, the longer the war in Ukraine drags on, the more costly it will be for Russia, on top of that, the west in time will be in a better position to supple arms better to Ukraine which is just going to make it more costly for Russia and as that is going on, Russia will be losing a lot of revenue from oil and gas sales whiles being isolated from the world. The end result is that even if Putin got what he wanted in Ukraine, he's still lost, the cost in all the other areas are hitting harder and we should remember that sanctions usually take about 2 to 3 years to really bite, so things are only just starting. The truth is, for all the resources Russia has, it's a weak country, it's got a GDP in-between Spain and Italy which has to account for a much bigger population and with the kind of resources Russia has, that's poor mismanagement of the economy because more competent governments with that level of resources would be a lot richer, the reality is, Russia is no match for the big boys like the EU, US and China and all Putin has done here is speed up the decline of Russia as a power on the world stage. Also, what a lot of people seem to misunderstand about the sanctions, it was never designed around the idea of getting the Russian people to turn on Putin, even thought that would help, no, the real intention of the west is to weaken Russia as a power by weakening its economy and isolating the country over the long term, if the Russian are fine with that, more fool them, but longer term it means a decline in living standards for Russians, the end result is that the west doesn't care about trying to get the Russian people to wake up, they are going out of their way to reduce the threat from Russia by weakening them as a power, that's a long term goal and so far it seems to be working and as for the west, it will only take a few short years for them to adapt to all this, basically, they are in a much better position to adapt to this then Russia is.
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@NoumenonAndPhenomenon I suspect China won't want to buy too much Russian oil and gas because they've seen how Putin is willing to use that natural resources as a political weapon if you don't do what they want, so China will take advantage of Russia by pressuring them to sell oil and gas dirt cheap but they won't buy too much that they risk becoming dependent on them. Also, gas is a different story as that isn't easy to transport like oil is and another factor is that the likes of China and India will want to be careful of what the west does, basically, it could harm a lot of business interest from China and India in the west if they get too close to Russia when the world is trying to isolate Russia, hence why a lot of companies from China are either pulling out of Russia or scaling back as the west is far more valuable to them than Russia is and these companies seem to be doing it voluntarily without the government pushing it, basically, these companies are protecting their interest in the west and don't see Russia as being worth it with everything going on.
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@toma9976 True, what we should remember that the void that Russia is leaving is a massive opening for other oil and gas producing countries to profit on at the expense of Russia.
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