Gazprom went bankrupt because Putin wanted it that way.
Mikhail Krutikhin is an economic analyst, oil and gas market expert, journalist, translator, and historian. He worked for the Middle East department of TASS for 20 years.
Since 1993, he has been mostly engaged in analyzing oil and gas investments. According to Krutikhin, oil and gas superprofits played a role in unleashing the war in Ukraine. Putin decided that Europe was so dependent on Russian oil and gas that he could dictate his terms to it. Even before the war began, he demanded that Gazprom sharply reduce gas supplies to European countries so that people there would freeze and Western politicians would be forced to bow to Putin.
But no one froze, while Gazprom, one of the richest companies in Russia, is now on the verge of bankruptcy.
Will China bail out Russia, is it possible for world oil prices to fall to the level of the 1980s, and can this stop the war?
We talk with the new hero of the Eyewitnesses of February 24 project.