Russia turns to China for energy partnership as Europe cuts ties.

Russia is seeking to plug the holes left in its finances by Western energy sanctions by exporting oil and gas to China. However, analysts and European lawmakers say Putin is overestimating how much Beijing can help him balance the books. Most of Russia's energy infrastructure runs to the West, not the East, making it a technical challenge to step up exports of oil and gas to China. Putin announced a major new pipeline, Power-of-Siberia 2, that will carry 50 billion cubic meters of gas to China via Mongolia to fix that problem. However, details of the financing and construction of the project have not yet been revealed.