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Putin’s Great Gamble to Beat Sanctions | The New Republic

Source: Putin’s Great Gamble to Beat Sanctions | The New Republic

…In 2017, a Russian oil tanker became the first boat to traverse the entirety of the Northern Sea Route without an icebreaker escort, linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans without traveling through the Suez or Panama Canal. Depending on the route, traveling via the Arctic could halve the distance between Europe and East Asia. The transit was a grim milestone for the melting Arctic—and a rosy harbinger for the Russian economy. In 2008, only two vessels transited the entire route. Last summer, 84 ships made the journey…

…As Russia further develops its Arctic infrastructure, it becomes increasingly open to Asian markets—and insulated from Western sanctions. Thus far, this petro-pivot to the East has been an unmitigated success. Russian oil revenue, buoyed by overheated prices, rose by $1.7 billion from April to May, as buyers in China and India gamely picked up the slack from the European and North American markets. Russia recently became China’s largest supplier of oil, knocking Saudi Arabia into second place. Putin, playing geopolitics like a game of chess, has been thinking several steps ahead, and understands how climate change is reshaping the board in real time.

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