There's an argument that oil exports are doing more to keep Russia afloat than gas tbh.
Not an argument so much as clear fact. It's interesting really: European governments assumed that the Kremlin would never do anything as mad as trying to conquer Ukraine as the economic ties (gas supplies being the main one, but also e.g. financial services) between Western Europe and Russia were so strong that they wouldn't dare, but
at the same time the Kremlin assumed that European governments would never do anything serious in response as the economic ties between Western Europe and Russia were so strong. The former remains embarrassing and all of our governments* and foreign policy establishments need to reflect on the implications, but the latter was clearly a much more serious mistake. Winter is going to be rough, but we'll weather it whereas the surprising intensity of Western European support for Ukraine has been an unambiguously disastrous development for the Russian war effort.
1. While people will tend to focus on Merkel here, we should not forget that e.g. the British government did not even respond particularly seriously, harsh words aside, to the Skripal affair, despite it constituting a chemical attack on a small British city, despite the fact that a British citizen died as a direct result.
2. Which, people getting cross on twitter aside, does include the German government: I'm not sure if anyone, not even those of us who were aware that the Scholz government always had the potential for more flexibility on a range of sensitive issues than any since Reunification, would seriously have expected arms deliveries to Ukraine from Germany on any scale at the start of the war. This has led to some incredibly hysterical scenes on Russian television, incidentally.
