Vladimir Putin Blames Rising Oil Prices on the Collective West’s Misguided Energy Policies
Jose Nino
|
During a plenary session of the Valdai International Discussion club that was held on October 27, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that current upward movement in global oil prices is due to the “systemic mistakes” the Collective West has made on energy policy.
“This crisis was caused by systemic measures that restricted the development of traditional fuels,” Putin declared. “A serious lack of funding in the sector resulted in a deficit, that’s all.”
“The United States is taking oil from its strategic reserves, but they will certainly have to replenish them later, and market experts understand it. Tomorrow, they will have to compensate for everything that is now being taken from the strategic reserves. They say: ‘We will buy later, when prices are low.’ But prices are still far from falling, and so they have to buy [oil] at a high price,” Putin added.
“But what have we to do with that? Those are systemic errors in the energy sphere, committed by those who were supposed to think about those issues and do something about them,” Putin sounded off.
Indeed, the West’s energy problems are self-inflicted in nature. While Russia’s military incursion into Ukraine clearly caused a major geoeconomic disruption, this military move — a high intensity border war at best — pales in comparison to the self-destructive energy policies the West has pursued over the last few decades.
These policies have rendered the Collective West weak and dependent on Russian energy.
Western nations need to look at themselves in the mirror and start recognizing that their diminishing economic states are due to bad public policies, not big, bad Russia.
Share: