Replies

Oil and gas revenues accounted for 52% of federal (Russian) budget revenues and over 70% of total exports in 2012, according to PFC Energy.
http://www.eia.gov/countries/cab.cfm?fips=rs
..................
Vladimir Putin’s commitment to oil and gas as the mainstay of Russia’s progress stems from a deep and abiding conviction about its importance to the nation’s economy. Long before he came to power, he had believed that “the restructuring of the national [Russian] economy on the basis of mineral and raw material resources” was “a strategic factor of economic growth in the near term.”[1]

In an article published a year before he became president, he reiterated that Russian mineral resources would be central to the country’s economic development, security, and modernization through “at least the first half” of the 21st century.[2] In Putin’s view, the only way for Russia to achieve economic growth of 4 to 6 percent per year—the tempo he deemed minimally necessary for Russia to reduce its lag behind the developed countries—was via “extraction, processing and exploitation of mineral raw resources.” This was the key to Russia’s becoming “a great economic power,” Putin believed.[3]

For Putin, oil and gas were also paramount politically as guarantors of the security and stability of the Russian state. As he put it, “The country’s natural resource endowment is the most important economic and political factor in the development of social production.” Furthermore, the “raw material complex” was the “basis for the country’s military might” and an “essential condition” for modernization of the military-industrial complex.[4] Finally, he believed the mineral extraction sector of the economy “diminishes social tensions” by raising the “level of well-being” of the Russian population.[5]
http://www.aei.org/outlook/foreign-and-defense-policy/regional/europe/the-political-economy-of-russian-oil-and-gas/