President Vladimir Putin has inaugurated a new natural gas field in eastern Siberia that will allow Russia to increase its exports to China. The Kremlin hopes to augment gas sales as its European trading partners divest themselves from Russian energy.

Moscow wants to boost gas sales to China. Gas income is critical to the Kremlin, to bankroll Putin’s war against Ukraine. But, until now Russia has had very little infrastructure to pump gas eastwards. Now Putin has announced the development of what he said would become the largest gas field in Eastern Siberia, plus the infrastructure to export the gas.