Abstract:
The 31st of December 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed and was replaced by the Russian Federation, together with a group of new-born States. It was a huge and devastated empire in catastrophic political and economic conditions. Under Vladimir Putin's rule, Russia underwent a massive restoration, which aimed at changing the State into a global power. One way to achieve this goal was the reinforcement of the energy sector. For a long time, Russia has been living off of private income, keeping many energy infrastructures operating since Soviet times, exploiting the old oil fields instead of investing in new technologies, and thus depriving the country from being competitive on the world stage. Another very important resource is natural gas, whose monopoly belongs to Gazprom. After a period of intense privatization during the early 2000s, which came to an end thanks to Putin's intervention, the oil industry shifted under the State's monopoly. Russia strives in order to diversify its resources, looks for new markets and tries to create a better economy, more suitable for the country itself. Moscow has been using energy also for its own geopolitical goals. Above all in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus, there are vast networks of oil and gas pipelines. Caucasian and Central-asian resources play a key role in contemporary Russian and global geopolitics, in fact many European States, as well as the US, are involved in these dynamics.
