The EU still takes 27% of all Russian exports; China about half that. Russia can either live with this interdependency or turn further towards China
soon showed that, although a few units were moving, many more were preparing to fight. With the candour that has wrong-footed Mr Putin, many Western security officials accused him of lying, redoubling their warnings of a looming Russian invasion. Even if the troops pull back, this crisis is not yet over. And, whatever happens, war or no war, Mr Putin has damaged his country by engineering it.
For one thing, although all eyes are on Mr Putin, he has galvanised his opponents. Led by Joe Biden, who once called Mr Putin “a killer” and surely loathes the man who tried to deny him the presidency, the West has agreed on a tougher package of threatened sanctions than in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea., dismissed in 2019 by the French president as suffering “brain death”, has found renewed purpose in protecting its Russia-facing flanks.
Mr Putin’s most intriguing loss is at home. Russia has attempted to build a fortress economy. It has boosted its reserves and reduced the share of them held in dollars. It has curtailed firms’ dependency on foreign capital and worked hard to build up its “tech stack” . It has also cosied up to China in the hope of finding an alternative buyer for the hydrocarbons that are still its principal source of foreign exchange.
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