Just before Christmas, Russian president Vladimir Putin set out more explicitly than ever before his vision of how his country would regain the international clout it enjoyed as part of the Soviet Union.

Noting proudly that Russia was the world’s biggest exporter of natural gas and second-biggest exporter of crude oil, he told a gathering of his most trusted ministers and advisers that the country should aim to be the global leader in energy. This, rather than the military-industrial complex that dominated the Soviet era, would be the engine of Russia’s renaissance.