Oil war: Russia hit by threefold calamity

Russia is afflicted by the low oil prices but also by the economic downturn due to the Covid-19-pandemia and the stagnation of the national economy that ist hurt by sanctions; russian business leaders are becoming impatient writes german newpaper Die Welt:

"The fact that Vladimir Putin was so quick after a phone call with his counterpart Donald Trump to participate in an oil cut together with Opec and other oil countries speaks volumes. Just a month earlier, he had the Saudis blown away with this request - and thus triggered an unprecedented drop in prices from $ 66 to $ 22 per barrel of the Brent variety, because Riyadh flooded the market out of anger.

Maybe he had simply underestimated the Saudis. Just as he had underestimated the corona virus. For a long time, the Kremlin had been unimpressed and kept relatively quiet. On March 17, Putin had declared in Crimea that everything was actually under control.

In the meantime, like many other countries, things blow up in his face. More precisely: in contrast to most countries even more. It is now becoming clear that Russia is getting a triple blow. On the one hand, the economy was stagnating, among other things because of the Western sanctions and the associated isolation, with growth of 1.3 percent."