Russia is prepared to join the Arab oil-producing cartel OPEC in order to raise the price of oil, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said. The cost of crude oil on the world markets reached nearly $150 earlier this year before plummeting to the current level of around $42.

Medvedev said that keeping the price of oil high is a way for the country to defend itself. "This is the source of our revenues, including from both oil and gas," he explained. OPEC Is planning to meet this week to cut oil production, a move Russia said it would join. Leonid Fedun, vice president of Russia's largest private oil company Lukoil, said that "if some 2.5mn barrels per day are taken out of the market, oil prices will stay between $60 and $80 per barrel next year."