"Gazprom" has charged Ukraine with stealing exported Russian gas supplied to European consumers via a Ukrainian gas transport system. A spokesman for "Gazprom", Sergei Kupriyanov, says the gas "retrieval" has already been officially registered.
Ukrainian premier Yuri Yekhanurov has brushed aside all accusations, though earlier he did not conceal his plans to "retrieve" 15 percent of Russian gas from the Europe-bound pipeline, allegedly to cover the cost of gas transit. Today Yekhanurov says that Ukraine "has not taken one single cubic meter of Russian gas".
But Hungarian "MOL" company has announced that on January 1 the volume of Russian gas supplied to Hungary via Ukrainian territory dropped by 25 percent. The same problem has been experienced in Poland. According to Polish minister of economy Peter Vozniak, on Sunday his country received 14 percent of gas less than normally. Gas deficit is expected to touch Italy too.
For its turn, "Gazprom" says it has been pumping all the gas volume required by European consumers. The inlet and outlet control at the gas pumping stations on the Russian-Ukrainian and Ukrainian-Hungarian borders confirms that Ukraine has been stealing Russian gas.
According to statistics, "Gazprom" provides Europe with roughly half the volume of gas it has been consuming, of which 80 percent is transported via Ukrainian territory. In this situation, Kiev is well aware that it has powerful leverage over Russia, blackmailing European consumers with possible interruptions in gas supply. In a cold winter, such a problem becomes especially topical for Europe.
Besides, Ukrainian president V. Yushchenko is playing his own game, trying to shunt an economic problem onto the rails of big politics. He is presenting the gas dispute to the West as attempts by Russia to encroach on Ukraine's sovereignty and take revenge on the Ukrainian people for the "orange revolution". Admittedly, he has, to a certain extent, succeeded in so doing.
Some high-ranking European Union officials have already been scaring European public with a "politically motivated" gas crisis. Thus, European Commissioner for Energy, Andris Pebalgs, has accused Moscow saying that the Russian energy politics are dictated not by market prices, but by the state. He demanded "setting strict rules" on the matter. The problem of energy security is scheduled to be debated by energy ministers of EU states at an extraordinary meeting in Brussels on January 4.
The US also expressed concern over the suspension of Russian gas supplies to Ukraine. The US State Department has qualified this measure as a "political pressure" on Kiev and called on both sides to gradually move towards market principles of gas price formation.
No doubt, the economic dispute between Russia and Ukraine has become, thanks to the efforts of the "orange" team and its sponsors in the West, an issue of big European politics. By stealing Russian gas from Europeans, Kiev is purposefully providing Moscow's competitors with a political means of restricting Russia's economic influence on world and European affairs. In this context, it is hardly possible to speak of any kind of "strategic partnership". To all appearances, Ukraine has definitively changed sides and joined Russia's geopolitical adversaries, where it is already being used as an agent provocateur, and in perspective as a notorious "sanitary cordon".
Ukrainian premier Yuri Yekhanurov has brushed aside all accusations, though earlier he did not conceal his plans to "retrieve" 15 percent of Russian gas from the Europe-bound pipeline, allegedly to cover the cost of gas transit. Today Yekhanurov says that Ukraine "has not taken one single cubic meter of Russian gas".
But Hungarian "MOL" company has announced that on January 1 the volume of Russian gas supplied to Hungary via Ukrainian territory dropped by 25 percent. The same problem has been experienced in Poland. According to Polish minister of economy Peter Vozniak, on Sunday his country received 14 percent of gas less than normally. Gas deficit is expected to touch Italy too.
For its turn, "Gazprom" says it has been pumping all the gas volume required by European consumers. The inlet and outlet control at the gas pumping stations on the Russian-Ukrainian and Ukrainian-Hungarian borders confirms that Ukraine has been stealing Russian gas.
According to statistics, "Gazprom" provides Europe with roughly half the volume of gas it has been consuming, of which 80 percent is transported via Ukrainian territory. In this situation, Kiev is well aware that it has powerful leverage over Russia, blackmailing European consumers with possible interruptions in gas supply. In a cold winter, such a problem becomes especially topical for Europe.
Besides, Ukrainian president V. Yushchenko is playing his own game, trying to shunt an economic problem onto the rails of big politics. He is presenting the gas dispute to the West as attempts by Russia to encroach on Ukraine's sovereignty and take revenge on the Ukrainian people for the "orange revolution". Admittedly, he has, to a certain extent, succeeded in so doing.
Some high-ranking European Union officials have already been scaring European public with a "politically motivated" gas crisis. Thus, European Commissioner for Energy, Andris Pebalgs, has accused Moscow saying that the Russian energy politics are dictated not by market prices, but by the state. He demanded "setting strict rules" on the matter. The problem of energy security is scheduled to be debated by energy ministers of EU states at an extraordinary meeting in Brussels on January 4.
The US also expressed concern over the suspension of Russian gas supplies to Ukraine. The US State Department has qualified this measure as a "political pressure" on Kiev and called on both sides to gradually move towards market principles of gas price formation.
No doubt, the economic dispute between Russia and Ukraine has become, thanks to the efforts of the "orange" team and its sponsors in the West, an issue of big European politics. By stealing Russian gas from Europeans, Kiev is purposefully providing Moscow's competitors with a political means of restricting Russia's economic influence on world and European affairs. In this context, it is hardly possible to speak of any kind of "strategic partnership". To all appearances, Ukraine has definitively changed sides and joined Russia's geopolitical adversaries, where it is already being used as an agent provocateur, and in perspective as a notorious "sanitary cordon".
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