Soaring oil prices have helped make Russia rich, but the flood of petrodollars means Russians face double digit price inflation. Dmitry Pankin, Russia’s deputy finance minister, sees a trade off in a recent market selloff: Russian companies might have trouble raising capital, but billions of dollars in capital outflows may be just the thing to help cool inflation. 

Russia’s Finance Ministry and central bank have been put on the defensive for investing the national reserves in U.S. mortgage agency debt. Deputy Finance Minister Dmitry Pankin tells the Reuters Russia Investment Summit that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were propping up Russia’s finances, not the other way around.

A quarter of the gas that heats European homes and powers European industry is piped in thousands of kilometres from the Russian tundra. By 2015, Russia’s share of European gas supplies will rise to at least one third. That powerful lever of influence over Europe’s economy raises the stakes in its confrontation with Russia over its invasion of Georgia.

But Alexander Medvedev, deputy chief executive of Russia’s state gas export monopoly Gazprom, opened the Reuters Russia Investment Summit on Monday with a reminder that even the mighty Gazprom is not invulnerable to Europe and the West, relying as it does on foreign revenue and capital.