in a former Soviet state. Meanwhile, China is hungry for more natural gas. Russia changes the flow of its pipelines, channelling more to China and less to Europe, without any drop in its own revenue. Europe's industrial costs rocket, home heating becomes exorbitant and the EU economy collapses.
It was scarcely noticed during the dog days of August, but Russia has now overtaken Saudi Arabia as the world's largest producer of oil. It already dominates natural gas.
Around £210m a day in oil and gas tax revenues now pour into the Russian treasury. Russia is now an oil and gas economy, with 52 per cent of all its state revenues and 35 per cent of its exports coming from the energy industry.
Then there are the two state-controlled energy giants, Gazprom - which this year surpassed BP and Shell to become the second largest energy company in the world after Exxon Mobil - and Rosneft. Both are tightly controlled, though sloppily managed, from the Kremlin.
Piecing together the various elements of 
