LNG projects for Russia’s Arctic gas make clear that Russia will become the fourth major pillar for LNG supply in the 2020s, along with the United States, Qatar, and Australia. These Arctic projects will give Russia the same advantage that Qatar achieved earlier this century—the flexibility, as Putin put it, to go either “eastward” or “westward.” And Yamal LNG, said Putin, “is one more confirmation of the status of Russia as one of the world’s leading energy powers.”16 The development of Arctic LNG also points to a major geopolitical shift with worldwide impact—the povorot na vostok, Russia’s
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