(Written by Matt Ward)
Vladimir
Putin has in the past decade spent billions of dollars that the
Russian economy does not have modernizing his military, especially his nuclear
arsenal and military command and control structures.
This
was fine as long as the price of oil remained stable as 70% of the Russian
economy is based on oil. However, in order for the Russian economy to
break even it needs to sell oil at a minimum price of $109 per barrel. Today it
is being sold at under $50 dollars per barrel.