Federico Bordonaro

Moscow is once again cutting natural gas supplies to Ukraine. As the Financial Times points out,

Russia in 2005 signalled its intentions to stop subsidising gas to former Soviet neighbours and to start charging market prices. It is time Kiev and Moscow ended annual price wrangles and signed a long-term contract similar to Russia’s agreements with western Europe, where a formula links gas prices, with a six- to nine-month lag, to oil prices. Their failure to do so results partly from politics. It suits Gazprom’s Kremlin masters to put Ukraine in a position where it can be portrayed as a flaky partner for the European Union. Supply disruptions in half a dozen European countries resulting from the dispute with Ukraine bolster arguments for a controversial alternative pipeline Gazprom is building under the Baltic Sea to Germany. Kiev, meanwhile, likes to depict Gazprom as a bully, but has been hampered in negotiations by chronic bickering among one-time Orange Revolution allies.

It’s virtually impossible that Moscow - and Gazprom - will ever admit that Russia has also political-strategic, and not only economic, stakes in the gas row. However, it is certain that the Kremlin’s goal of avoiding Kiev’s integration into NATO is playing an important role in the current crisis. Presumably, Moscow is trying to weaken Yushchenko’s leadership and to shape a new Ukrainian political landscape, in which a “post-orange” élite would look more favourably at a “strategic partnership” with Russia, and would stop to seeking NATO accession.

However, the current gas row risks discrediting both Ukraine and Russia as reliable commercial partners in the eyes of the Europeans. This represents a threat for both Moscow and Kiev. On one hand, if the two contendants perceive such discredit as a significant risk, the ongoing situation may pave the way for a promising commercial agreement. On the other hand, Russia may try to drastically reduce Ukraine’s importance as a transit country. As Antonella Scott suggested (Il Sole-24 Ore, 4 January), Gazprom could attempt to use the controversial Nord Stream (via the Baltic Sea) and South Stream (via Turkey and the Western Balkan region) projects in order to supply more gas toward western Europe while at the same time bypassing the territories of Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic republics, and Poland.

As of today, it is far from clear whether the two projects will serve such purposes. Moreover, the South Stream could be endangered by the Nabucco gas pipeline project, should the Europeans chose to boost their support for the latter. At any rate, Kiev may soon face an even more dramatic situation than the one it confronts today: the permanence of its dependency upon Moscow for gas supplies, and the contemporary loss of its influential role as key transit route… Now a big question for the next months: Will the West throw its full diplomatic weight behind Kiev to protect Ukraine?