[trhway]

>The goal for the Saudi's is to bring the Russians to the negotiating table

the current oil skirmish is a part of much bigger war - Russia went into Syria and has supported the Shia belt (Hezbollah - Asad - Iraqi Shia government - Iran) against Sunni (ISIS/Saudis) despite having no religious preference between Shia/Sunni in particular to block Saudis from being able to pipeline the stuff to Europe (which is an oil and especially natural gas market critical to Putin's Russia survival, and where Saudis have been trying for example to send oil and LNG tankers to. The LNG is more expensive than pipelined NG while Saudis have a lot of NG, so they need a pipeline to Europe and that would be existential blow to the current Russia economy and its "soft" power (like the threat of turning gas off in winter) power over Europe). In this context i don't see Russia going to negotiate wrt. current skirmish. If anything i think it would go all the way in Stalingrad style, Russian population economical suffering be damned, in hopes of forcing Saudis to come to bigger negotiations in much weaker shape.