Russia wasn’t “fucking around for 8 years”. A guy named Trump somehow turned the US into the biggest energy producer on the planet, in a span of 36 months, depressing the price of a barrel of oil to only $28. Oil and natural gas are Russia’s “gold”. Energy exports comprises over 50 percent of Russia’s total GDP. At $28/barrel, Russia was barely breaking even. So Russia changes gears into natural gas exports. And Trump refused to green-light Russia’s Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline, knowing this would make the entirety of Europe dependent on Russia as their sole supplier of energy. So Putin had to sit back and wait, until he had enough capital (knowing sanctions would be coming after his invasion). So China started opening new coal plants at a rate of one new plant every 6 weeks, as far back as 2018. China has doubled coal production in 24 months (and will become Russia’s primary coal supplier now, post-sanctions). Why does Russia need coal, when their sitting on so much fossil fuel energy in oil and natural gas? Simple. You cannot make steel without coal (specifically, coke coal, which is one of very few fuel sources that can cheaply heat iron to 1800F degrees, which is necessary to manufacture steel). And you need steel to manufacture buildings, infrastructure (bridges, railways, tools, ships, trains, cars, machines, electrical appliances, and weapons.
So The Biden administration comes along, and on day-1, Biden cancels Keystone XL, freezes all new oil leases on US federal land, re-joins The Paris Accord, and in less than 14 months, oil goes from $27/barrel to $100/barrel. Then Biden green-lights Nord Stream 2, and begins importing 450,000 barrels of oil, PER DAY, from Russia. Now the US is energy-dependent on Russia. Biden begs OPEC to pump more oil, and they refuse. Putin has Chinese coal as his steel resource, and he invades Ukraine. Almost like this was planned in December of 2019, when China inexplicably had the world’s first recorded case of Covid-19. And the US election in November 2020 ended up being a Mail-In ballot election. And Biden got 81 million votes.
And. Here. We. Are.