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“[The research] impacts the course of the conflict in Ukraine, how the conflict is perceived by the American people, and the data that policymakers have to work with when they are making decisions that have massive impact,” Tian said. “Whenever you are going up against conventional wisdom, you have to make sure your case is ten-times stronger than anyone else’s.”

The team knew that energy would be the centerpiece of their research since oil and gas constitute 45% of Russia’s government budget revenue and thereby help to finance the war in Ukraine. Despite punitive sanctions on Russia’s oil and gas exports to Europe, Putin claimed that he was able to sustain pre-invasion levels of oil and gas revenue by “pivoting to the East” and exporting oil and gas to India and China.

But, in contrast to the United States’ liquified natural gas (LNG) exports, which can be shipped via tankers, Russia’s natural gas typically travels through pipelines. Russia could only “pivot” its gas exports if its pipeline network connected to China and India. From a University of Pennsylvania class on the geopolitics of Russian energy, research team member Michal Wyrebkowski was well-versed in Russia’s natural gas industry. Wyrebkowski translated articles from Russian energy journals to collect data on the routes and capacity of operating pipelines, pipelines under construction, and proposed pipelines. By plotting the pipeline routes on a map, Wyrebkowski realized that the Eastern pipeline network had no connections to the Western grid. “As we connected the dots, we clearly saw the pieces fall in place,” he said. “Russia’s position as an energy exporter was falling apart.”

Short of building expensive and extensive pipeline networks, Russia’s only option to export its gas outside of Europe was to produce LNG. However, LNG currently comprises only 10% of Russian gas