Contrary to what Putin had expected, oil prices continued to fall. Maybe it wasn’t worth the expense of waging war with oil prices going down instead of up.
You might be right. This was a big gamble by Russia to keep oil prices high to keep their revenues high by forcing a monopoly supply of oil to Eastern Europe by taking out the pipeline through Georgia. Also gold prices are dropping too. Russia is a large supplier of gold.
Maybe Palosi’s recent flirtation with allowing a House vote on offshore oil drilling, was a signal to Putin that the US was serious about changing the oil equation? That assumes that Pelosi would actually listen to reason from those smarter than her on both oil and global geo-politics.