Not intelligent folks.
I think this is a long term strategy by Russia to control the price of oil. The reason why the price is going down has to do with America just talking about exploration and drilling for oil. We actually havent done much of it yet, which kinda goes to show how bad things are in the USA with energy policy.
Russia desires to be the USSR of old. Im sure it is insulting for them to see republics form off of thier old “possessions”.
I think Russia is gambling that the price of crude will continue to go down, so in a way this is like them investing thier profits. They have successfuly destablized Georgia and now the other block countries know one of them are next.