Tit for tat. US\UK major oils were silently influencing Russian politics via Western governments with the help of Luke Oil's CEO who was trying to accelerate the growth of his company by accepting foreign investment without the support of its home country.
Hence the back taxes slap which was a joke because there is no such thing as "taxes" in Russia. "Taxes" are what you pay if you refuse the payout extortion monies to local\regional\national politicians.
Now fast forward and you have the great Sakhalin project. Russian knows how much they have in the ground and have stalled Western development of their share of the projects due to environmental issues and the such and threaten to remove foreign companies form their shares if they don't follow policies. But again it’s a joke. Slap made up environmental polices on a company which slows down development and then slap down the threat to remove them if they can't complete their projects on time. Chavez was pretty much cut to the chase. He just took over all the foreign owned resources in his country. No beating around the bush. Russia is different. Anyone who has lived around the region or understands the culture enough realizes that that its like playing Cowboy's and Indians with the kid who never gets hit.
I didn't even get into the control over European energy that Russia has and the US influence of South East Asian and Northern African countries ability to sell to Europe. Russia has blocked every attempt the Western world had in putting up competition to their monopoly. And with OPEC cutting production we will see nonOPEC increase their production.
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