IN THE PRESS

The Russian-Ukrainian gas crisis

"Russian Gas: Putin's Momentous Move," editorial, The Guardian, (London), January 4:

This crisis has been about something larger and more complex than the price paid by Ukraine for Russian gas. Russia is the world's largest supplier of natural gas and its huge state-owned Gazprom energy company is fully entitled, in principle, to sell that gas at a market price. But Russia uses Gazprom to set its prices as a way of exerting political influence.

How else can one explain the fact that, until January 1, the same 1,000 cubic meters of gas was sold at such a variety of prices as $120-125 to EU customers, $110 to Georgia, $50 to Ukraine and $47 to Belarus. And the same is true, in spades, of the $230 per 1,000 cubic meters that Russia unilaterally demanded of Ukraine from Sunday.

This was not just a breach of a five-year contract that Gazprom made in 2004. It was also an attempt to destabilize the pro-Western government that came to power after Moscow's candidate was ousted in Ukraine's Orange Revolution nearly two years ago.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, January 15, 2006, No. 3, Vol. LXXIV

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