Bengaluru, India – Leaning forward, arms resting on his desk, Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a crisp message to leaders of the country’s energy sector earlier this month: they needed to plan for a decline in Western imports by shifting their focus from Europe to Asia.
From the Kremlin’s perspective, that directive makes sense. The United States, United Kingdom and Australia have already banned the import of Russian energy. And the European Union is under mounting pressure from the US and members like Poland and Lithuania to institute an embargo on Russian oil and gas in response to Moscow’s continuing war in Ukraine.
