'Our prosperity was based on China and Russia': EU foreign policy chief says

Yep, looks like there are some underlying fundamentals even if the flow of gas or the balance of trade changes.

The most prominent thing about prosperity emanating from Russia to Europe is that it was based on natural resources. New wealth being tapped at the source and trickling outward.

With China, those who got the money to afford European products earned a lot of it by selling to many more Americans, over an extended period, relatively low-value Chinese-made consumer products. One dollar at a time this built tremendous financial ability in China that it never had before.

Sometimes a consumer economy can be tapped at the source longer than a natural resource, sometimes not.

Either way there's a supply chain, and the longer the supply chain the more subject to potential disruption.