When sanctions made the Fortress Russia he helped build seem less impregnable, Maxim Oreshkin came up with a signature gambit to try and break the economic siege.
Russia’s war on Ukraine wasn’t yet a month old and its blitzkrieg was already turning into a slog. The economic blowback was harsh, too, as the government struggled to avoid a default and the ruble went into in a nosedive.
On March 23, Vladimir Putin struck back, demanding that Russia’s adversaries in Europe pay their massive bills for its natural gas in rubles.
