All of these are illusions. The currency is propped up by the government because it's not freely exchanged anymore. Europe is making a massive turn away from Russian energy despite the medium-term pain. The Russian military has achieved very little in five months of warfare. And China genuinely doesn't care about Russia. If the Russian Federation were to balkanize into smaller states, the Chinese leaders certainly wouldn't mind.
Europe is working hard on getting their energy from other sources. And once they've done that, they're not going back to Russian gas. In the long term, this is absolutely a loss for Russia.
Germany will not build any new LNG terminals when in a few short years they can just resume buying from the cheapest seller, before the first new terminal has even finished being constructed.
Simultaneously Russia is not stupid enough to completely cut off the gas and trigger a total crisis. They are pulling on the chains but they understand the risk to the relationship just as well as you do. Don't forget all the gas supply shortages to date have been justified in terms of required maintenances and problems due to western sanctions. That's paving a route for resumption of normal relations between both parties at a later date with no loss of face for either party.
Russia controls the most valuable portion of Ukraine right now. Going after Kiev was a win/win for Russia because it allowed them to capture the southern coast and maybe even gave them the country (it didn't).
Unless Ukraine retakes the southern coast, Russia will have achieved their main objective.
> If the Russian Federation were to balkanize into smaller states, the Chinese leaders certainly wouldn't mind.
There's some territory there that the USSR took from China back when China was weak. Once those roles are reversed, who's to say China won't start looking in that direction?
