The Ukraine crisis: another crossroads on Russia's downward path

"Obsessive" focus on the Russian government's geopolitical aspirations "obscures larger issues", I argue in the Oxford Energy Forum (downloadable free here). Those issues include Russia's declining economic influence over, and energy trade with, Ukraine and other neighbours, and that "its own economy is becoming more and more one-sidedly a supplier of oil, gas and other raw materials to world markets, and its own development in the broadest sense is suffering as a result".