First, the Russian side avoided making a “big deal” of the issue while the election campaign was going on, presumably in order not to diminish Yanukovich’s chances of winning by giving the Bloc Yulia Timoshenko more ammunition against the current PM and Government. At the same time, bringing the issue up exactly at the time when coalition-formation negotiations are going on is a way to seek to affect, indirectly, the outcome of these negations. Not to speak of the fact that it is exactly this month that negotiations on Ukraine’s gas supply for 2008 have to take place, and highlighting this crisis exactly at this moment is a way to put pressure on the Ukrainian side.
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| Yulia Tymoshenko may repudiate Russia-Ukraine gas agreement |
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So, indeed, the Russian government uses energy as a tool of political influence in Ukraine, as it has been doing since at least 1994. But what we should not forget is that, in addition to political goals, there are also many economic interest involved, including some related to corruption, and that certain players in the Ukrainian side have benefited as much from then as actors on the Russian side. (I discuss this issue in length in my book, Energy Dependency, Politics and Corruption in the Former Soviet Union: Russia’s Power, Oligarch’s Profits and Ukraine’s Missing Energy Policy, 1995-2006 (RoutledgeCurzon, 2007), which should be coming out later this month.)
I must add that the whole way in which this latest gas crisis has played out is very worrisome. It is very clear to me as well to Ukrainian energy experts that this is not Ukraine’s state debt, but RosUkrEnergo’s private debt, so it is very worrying that the Ukrainian government has decided to treat it, basically, as state debt. Moreover, the sudden increase in the debt from $1.3 billion to $2 billion tells me some non-transparent business may be going on. It is exactly on this question that the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc has asked the RNBO (Natsionalnii Soviet po Bezpeki I Oborony) to look into in an urgent manner.
Pravda.Ru: Do you think that the victory of Ukraine’s Orange bloc in the elections is a step towards democracy in Ukraine? Why?
Margarita Balmaceda : It is a step towards democracy in the sense that the population has delivered a clear “no” to two parties, that, whether we like it or not, has been involved in non-transparent dealings in Ukraine, including in energy relations. In particular, the success of the Yulia Timoshenko bloc, which campaigned calling for a repudiation of the January, 2006 gas agreements with Russia, represents a clear popular “no” to that way of doing business.
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