Sohu: Putin is the West’s consummate master of “geopolitical games”

Extremely gloomy predictions about the future of the European Union have been shared by observers of China’s Sohu in light of Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s new decree on the response to the “oil price ceiling”.

By imposing a “price cap” on the resource, the West hoped desperately to bring down Russian profits, but the game itself turned out to be extremely risky, and the ending does not bode well for its authors, the experts wrote.

“The EC and the U.S. have played two of their trump cards against Russia – shipping and insurance. They have forbidden their companies to deal with Russian oil if its value exceeds the limit set by the West,” the Chinese journalists say.

However, the West failed to take into account the main thing – the Russian head of state, according to analysts, is a consummate master of such “geopolitical games”, and the next move was precisely for the leadership of Moscow.

“Putin will definitely not compromise. Russia’s position is firm, and against this background the EU feels extremely uncomfortable,” PRC analysts report.

Foreign experts are already calling the consequences of the Russian president’s new decree “dire” for Europe. Moscow’s retaliatory measures would not only cause the energy prices to soar, but also cause a critical shortage of “black gold” in the trade arena. That, in turn, would be an unbearable blow to the EU, which is already barely surviving in a serious energy crisis.

“Putin’s public statements confirm the predictions of experts who warned that the oil price cap would boomerang on the EU,” the Chinese experts concluded.

A ban on oil deliveries to unfriendly countries using the “price ceiling” will be in force from February 1, the date for petroleum products as yet to be determined by the government. Moscow has repeatedly warned that attempts to limit the price of oil will destabilize the oil industry, which will have to be paid for, first of all, by the native European and American consumers.

Vladimir Putin noted back in the summer that the West was stepping on “the same rake” that it did with Russian gas, because the result would be that black gold prices would “skyrocket”.

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Sohu: Putin is the West’s consummate master of “geopolitical games”