In ex-Soviet space, Russia is criticized through the supposed "war of gas": according to the press and many western politicians, Putin increased the price for this raw material as punishment for the alignment of some countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS, the fragile organization that substituted the USSR in 1992) with the west (USA, principally). From the end of the USSR, Russia sold oil and gas at reduced below market prices to old Soviet countries: what it means is that the state and the Russian entrepreneurs subsidize these savings. It is true that the Ukraine and Georgia had regime changes recently, with western support, that it can appear that there is a relation between two facts; but it is difficult to explain because the price of gas sold to the Byelorussia also increased--therefore this country, under the regime of Aleksandr Lukashenko, maintains economic and strategic relations with Russia, and it is considered by the USA and the EU as "the last dictatorship in Europe."
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The increase on gas has other causes: the first one is that the Russians do not want to keep on subsidizing the savings of other countries; and Monday they demanded that Russians begin to sell oil and gas at market prices to all buyers, to authorize its entry in the Worldwide Organization of Commerce (Russia is a richer country than many yet is still not a member of the market economy group, a clearly politicized situation, since countries such as China and Vietnam entered several years ago). Russia is not doing anything more than what the policies of market dictate, charging as much to internal consumers as to the external, and as much to a friendly country (Belarus) as for rivals (Ukraine and Georgia). In fact, the one who brandished a "war of gas" went to Ukraine and Byelorussia, while cutting the gas that passes through their territories of Russia for the EU, wrapping other countries in a question that does not concern them.
The oldest members of the EU tacitly recognize the need to support politics and economics involving the Russian construction projects for gas pipelines and oil pipelines under the Baltic and Black seas, that will transport gas and oil directly from Russia to Western Europe. The criticisms of the European press about the "absence of reliability" of Russian energy exports have no foundation: the construction of these submerged underwater ducts supply a Europe that does not fear a Russian cut, but yes those countries can use the gas pipelines that travel through their territories as instrument of pressure.
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