This is fairly conspiratorial. SA was looking at all this fracking and realizing fracking could easily invalidate its oil wealth. All it has is oil wealth. If

This is fairly conspiratorial. SA was looking at all this fracking and realizing fracking could easily invalidate its oil wealth. All it has is oil wealth. If the regime wants to survive it must compete with fracking. I'm not sure why this is suddenly a surprise as HN and other popular sites have had fracking articles for years and those articles specifically mention the threat fracking is to SA's oil wealth. That's on top of the upcoming electric car revolution, which is very much depress oil prices futher as demand plummets. And that's on top of China's oil demand going down as its slowing down its mega-building projects and entering an economic slowdown. It probably doesn't help that Putin is messing around the mideast and trying to get all sorts of oil/gas pipelines running through it. On top of Putin cozying up to Iran, which is SA's regional rival. I imagine there's a realpolitik angle here and probably a dozen other angles, but the idea that the US called up SA and made them drop prices solely to hurt Putin laughable. Putin is already hurting Putin by forcing sanctions on himself with his various annexations. Even without the oil drop, Russia's economy would still be in the shitter. They can't get the loans they need to beat the recession that's been brewing for years. They can't modernize their economy, can't diversify, etc. They scared off foreign investors with their annexations, civilian targeting, corruption, and nationalization of wealth. What country did the founder of VK flee to, for example? The oil price drop is just the icing on Putin's incompetence. The ruble is now 0.015 US Dollar, which is half its historic price. We didn't get here by oil price drops alone. Putin is digging his own grave here, and by proxy, the Russian people's.