Putin’s war ambitions profit most from the scare around Hormuz. His sanctions get removed to provide alternative supply, he can charge exorbitant prices, and he gets leverage. Since he is also providing targeting information for Iran to shoot at, it feels like this is an avatar joystick war for him to distract from his Ukraine disaster.
Putin mainly benefits from the increased price of oil - black-market oil prices are a discount relative to standard-market oil, so he'll have a much healthier budget, even if his sanctions stay "airtight".
China benefits here - they import Russian crude oil over land, so their costs won't increase as much as the international market (unless Russia uses the leverage to absorb all the benefit, which I doubt), but more crucially: the alternative to oil fuel is renewables, and China dominates renewables so a spike in demand for solar/batteries will be a godsend for them.
> China benefits here - they import Russian crude oil over land,
No, they don't. 54% of their oil comes from the middle east. Only 20% comes from Russia.
China does have a healthy oil reserve at the moment, so this may be marginally less bad for them. And yes, their electricity comes from renewables, but like in any other country, all of their logistics run on diesel.
By starting this war, the United States, unsatisfied with flipping the table on bilateral trade with other countries just flipped the table on multipolar international trade. What a time to be alive.
But at least for now, their fret trains have limited reach. They have a big country, with sparse population once you leave the coastal areas. I think this will help them push their railroad infrastructure though.
It's not a sparse population until you're significantly further inland than Chengdu. A billion people are living in an area that's roughly comparable to west-of-missippi USA. It's cities and high-density farmland, nothing else. If there's a few square meters of unoccupied space, somebody planted vegetables there.
Always strange how the Trump administration’s policies always seem to have a benefit for Russia… Just a fluke coincidence that keeps happening I guess.
They already won the war in Ukraine when they got the US to drop support. Greenland “war” pro Russia. Iran, oh what a surprise, Russia gets a fuel waiver from the US. All of this is a net benefit to Russia, yes. With all blame going to the US. The fact Russia is //providing targets// to the US shows this is definitely something they are excited about.
The Trump administration is slowly strangling Russia and China’s allies. First Syria, then Venezuela. Cuba is struggling without Venezuela oil. We’re bombing the life out of their drone supplier Iran.
The Trump administration is slowly strangling it's European allies.
And China is buying oil on the global market with money just like everyone else. Unless you are advocating for an oil embargo on China in which case congratulations you just started WW3.
> The Trump administration is slowly strangling it's European allies.
Perhaps, but this is ultimately orthogonal to the discussion “is this good or bad for Russia?”
I’m not sure what the intent of your reply is here but I’ve not advocated for violence. Simply pointed out that it’s countering the Russia-China bloc countries.
