Russia will soon exhaust its combat capabilities, Western assessments predict

[BumRushDaShow]

39. For them, it's better than nothing

and it's a reliable source of income although obviously not enough to sustain their current level of national functions, let alone trying to engage in a significant war.

However they do still have China, who has who knows how many engineers that can reproduce anything (and China is probably the biggest copyright, patent, and intellectual property violator in the world because of that).

They recently turned on a gas pipeline to China (in 2019) - https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/es/market-insights/latest-news/natural-gas/120219-russia-starts-gas-deliveries-to-china-via-power-of-siberia



So China will make sure that stuff is flowing smoothly. That effort was initiated 8 years ago -

China, Russia sign $400 billion gas deal

By William Wan and Abigail Hauslohner
May 21, 2014

BEIJING — China signed a huge, long-awaited deal on Wednesday to buy Russian natural gas, giving Beijing a new source of clean energy and Moscow a diplomatic boost as it faces international sanctions for its aggressive actions in Ukraine.

With the stroke of a pen, Russia significantly shifted its economic relations with its neighbors, creating a major new export market to the east and reducing its reliance on European customers at a time when its relations with the West are at their lowest point since the Cold War. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the deal a “watershed event” and said implementation would start “tomorrow.”

The 30-year deal was announced after meetings in Shanghai between Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping. It is worth an estimated $400 billion, Alexei Miller, chief executive of the Russian energy giant Gazprom, told Russian reporters. The deal marked a new partnership between two countries that have at times mistrusted each other but have also sought to counter U.S. influence in global affairs.

China’s booming economy has created a growing need for energy, especially cleaner sources of power, given its reliance on coal, which has produced major pollution problems. The agreement allows Russia to diversify its gas exports at a time when the crisis in Ukraine has accelerated calls in Europe to rely less on energy supplies from Russia. Europe gets about 30 percent of its gas from Russia.

(snip)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/china-russia-sign-400-billion-gas-deal/2014/05/21/364e9e74-e0de-11e3-8dcc-d6b7fede081a_story.html?hpid=z4

(i.e., the above was initiated after what happened when Russia invaded Crimea (resulting in sanctions), so Pootie had some backstop plans already in place when he invaded Ukraine again this year)