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Russia, Ukraine on the brink of resuming gas transit to Europe
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by yuls.source | January 17, 2009 at 09:58 pm
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The gas summit in Kremlin today has lead to signficant progress in the gas dispute between Russia and Ukraine over gas supplies to Europe. If treaties are signed tomorrow, transit of Europe-bound gas will resume. Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko has acknowledged the talks.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Yulia Timoshenko reached an agreement on natural-gas supplies that may see shipments to Europe resume after almost two weeks of disruption.
A package of documents covering prices and transit fees should be prepared by tomorrow, allowing Russian exports via Ukraine to restart, Timoshenko said today on Russian state television after meeting Putin in Moscow. The talks had been “very difficult,” she said.
The two premiers agreed that Ukraine will get a 20 percent discount on the price it pays for gas from Russia this year should it maintain the fee it charges for transporting fuel to Europe at the 2008 level, Putin said. The countries will move to a European pricing formula for gas supply and transit next year, he said, without specifying any prices.
The breakthrough came after officials from the European Union, which has suffered gas shortages during the crisis, stepped up the pressure on both sides to find a solution at a Kremlin summit yesterday. Exporter OAO Gazprom cut off flows to Europe via Ukraine on Jan. 7 after talks over pricing and transit fees broke down. Russia accused its western neighbor of siphoning off Europe-bound gas for its own use, a charge the country denies.
The agreement means supplies to Europe should start “soon,” Putin said, without giving an exact date.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (3)
at 22:25 on January 17th, 2009
I hope the treaties are signed tomorrow.
at 05:36 on January 18th, 2009
Lots of finger pointing as well, who is to blame, they should not be playing games with people during freezing weather
at 00:48 on January 24th, 2009
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After the formal ending of gas conflict between Russia and Ukraine each party has begun to speak about its own victory, though it seems to me there is a clear understanding in these two countries that the conflict hasn’t winners, only losers. Russia has lost its reputation as reliable gas supplier to Europe, and Ukraine has lost its name of blameless transit country for Russian gas. In addition, economies of these countries have suffered enormous losses running into billions of US dollars.
However at the moment neither V.Putin nor Y.Timoshenko worries about it. They have achieved their goals: Putin has fulfilled his promise to punish Ukraine in the person of Yuschenko for support of Georgia in Russian-Georgian conflict in August 2008, and Timoshenko has received Putin’s support as a candidate for the Ukrainian presidency.
Can Europe realize that it will possibly have to work with this tandem in the nearest feature? Can it in proper time perceive the threats for itself this tandem brings? Has Europe any guarantee that it will not become the next “victim” of Putin because EU’s position in Russian-Georgian conflict didn’t differ from that of Ukraine? Or the fear of Russia and EU internal differences will again bring grist to Putin’s mill. European carelessness has already led to situation when citizens of some EU countries became the main victim of the gas conflict. Russia and Ukraine had not such serious problems with gas as, for example, Bulgaria.