TYMOSHENKO, THE BIG BLUFF. (Tymoshenko, il grande bluff)

Far fuori gli avversari politici mettendoli dietro le sbarre non è certo il metodo migliore per gestire il potere ottenuto in maniera democratica. Eppure è quello che sta succedendo in Ucraina con il caso di Yulia Tymoshenko, ex primo ministro e leader dell’opposizione che è stata condannata a sette anni di galera per abuso di potere.

Al presidente Victor Yanukovich la dura sentenza serve anche per ottenere una piattaforma giuridica per tentare di ottenere la revisione dei contratti del 2009, obiettivamente svantaggiosi per il paese. Si spiega in questa maniera la reazione russa, con il Cremlino che sia durante il procedimento sia alla sua conclusione si è schierato a favore dell’imputata, sottolineando la validità degli accordi raggiunti tra l’eroina della rivoluzione arancione e Vladimir Putin due anni fa.
I rapporti tra Kiev e Mosca sono sempre passati attraverso le pipelines: è l’oro blu a unire o dividere, a seconda dei momenti. E i protagonisti di queste storie sono sempre gli stessi. In Ucraina Yulia Tymoshenko, ex principessa del gas che con il suo gruppo ha gestito per anni il traffico con la Russia e che prima è passata al ministero dell’Energia poi alla seggiola di premier; Dmitri Firtash, oligarca impegnato nell’energia e non solo, nemico giurato della bionda pasionaria; Yuri Boiko, attuale ministro dell’Energia, ex ceo a Naftogaz e uno dei suggeritori di Yanukovich, da anni schierato con l’ala conservatrice uscita dal blocco dell’ex presidente Leonid Kuchma cui appartengono gli altri magnati dell’industria ucraina, guidati da Rinat Akhmetov.

In Russia chi controlla Gazprom, cioè il Cremlino, è il vero gestore delle relazioni che toccano economia e politica: Putin impera. E se l’ormai scomparso Victor Chernomyrdin dopo essere stato per anni il numero uno di Gazprom era stato mandato a fare l’ambasciatore in Ucraina lo scorso decennio il motivo era chiaro. Politica e gas: gli intrecci al Cremlino sono come quelli alla Bankova e interpretarli non è sempre cosa semplice: ma è chiaro che il processo Tymoshenko si inserisce nel canovaccio dei duelli per il potere.
L’Europa in questa contesa fa da spettatrice: non ha danari per intraprendere un progetto consistente per la ristrutturazione del gas ucraino e rischia di lasciare via libera alla Russia che, avviato Nordstream, ha ora Southstream in progetto. Il sistema di trasporto ucraino va modernizzato e Gazprom vuole metterci sopra le mani, sul modello bielorusso (lo stesso dicasi per Naftogaz). Bruxelles si allarma per la Tymoshenko, ma non può permettersi di abbandonare i negoziati sull’accordo di associazione che dovrebbe essere firmato entro l’anno con Kiev.
L’errore europeo è stato quello di non capire che la rivoluzione del 2004 era un bluff. Gli ucraini l’anno capito da tempo, basta andare a guardarsi i sondaggi sul gradimento della Lady di ferro, peggiori di quelli di Yanukovich. Ora rischia di essere troppo tardi.
(Limes)

THE ORIGINAL PURPOSE. (Lo scopo originale)

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych clinched energy pacts with Azerbaijan on Jan. 28 and attacked Russia for plans to bypass his country in supplying gas to Europe, reviving market fears of regular spats between Moscow and Kyiv.

Markets were relieved when Yanukovych, perceived as friendlier to the Kremlin than his predecessor, Viktor Yushchenko, was elected Ukraine’s president last year.

That followed five years of disputes between the ex-Soviet neighbors, marked by mid-winter cuts in Russian gas supplies to Europe that represent a quarter of the continent’s total needs.

But Yanukovych has played a much less pro-Moscow role than expected since taking office, saying the European Union was an equally or even more important partner than Russia.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the president lashed out at new Russian pipeline projects and signed oil and gas deals with Azerbaijan to cut Ukraine’s reliance on Russia.

Yanukovych said Ukraine shared Poland’s concerns about political motives behind the Nord Stream pipeline to supply Russian gas to Western Europe along the Baltic Sea floor, bypassing central European nations.

“Another project being discussed today between Russia and Europe is the construction of South Stream. This possibility is directly related to Ukraine and here I share the position of Poland,” he said, referring to a project to pipe gas under the Black Sea to southern Europe.

Russia ships about 80 percent of its gas exports to Europe through Ukraine now and the remaining 20 percent via Belarus and says it needs the new projects to boost Europe’s energy security after disruptions in previous years.

Yanukovych said South Stream would cost $25 billion while it would cost much less to upgrade Ukraine’s pipeline system.

“Why are our partners today pretending that there is no alternative? A year ago we proposed a project that would cost five times less – not more than $5 billion, it would come to the same destination points to which South Stream would go.”

“That’s why we ask the same question, speaking eye-to-eye with our partners, and we are still waiting for an answer.”

“If this is a way to exert pressure, not a commercial project, then of course serious questions arise about how we should build our relations today, let alone in the future.”

Yanukovych used the Davos platform to sign a deal with Azeri President Ilham Aliyev to import liquefied natural gas to a planned Ukrainian terminal aimed at reducing the country’s heavy dependence on Russian gas. The memorandum did not specify volumes for the terminal to be opened in 2015. He also signed a memorandum on cooperation in shipping Azeri oil across Ukraine.

Yanukovych said Ukraine would ship the first million tons of Caspian Sea oil to Europe via the pipeline this year, thus ending its use to export Russian crude to the Mediterranean.

“The Odessa-Brody pipeline has been used in various directions. Very soon we will start working according to the original idea, delivering oil from Odessa to European countries,” he said.

Interfax news agency quoted Ukrainian officials as saying the deal covered deliveries of up to 4 million tons a year.

Aliyev, who spoke at the same panel, said he was under no pressure from Russia to shun the Nabucco pipeline, seen as a key European Union’s attempt to reduce reliance on Russian.
(Therearenosunglasses's weblogs)

SEVASTOPOL PAID IN GAS? (Sevastopoli pagata in metano?)

The presidents of Ukraine and Russia agreed Wednesday to extend the stay of Russia's Black Sea Fleet in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol after the lease expires in 2017.

The move is among the strongest signs since Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych took power in February that he will steer away from his pro-Western predecessor's drive to shed Russia's influence.

It also is likely to boost Yanukovych's standing at home by taking some pressure off Ukraine's beleaguered economy. The agreement includes Russia giving Ukraine steep discounts for the natural gas on which its industries depend.

Ukraine has been hit harder by the global downturn than many other European countries, and it has been eager to get discounts for Russian gas.

For years, Ukraine bought Russian gas at well below market prices, but after Yushchenko took office and pledged to bring the country into NATO and the European Union, Russia repeatedly raised prices. Price disputes led to Russian gas cutoffs; the most severe, in early 2009, lasted two weeks and severely curtailed Russia's gas exports to Western Europe, most of which transit Ukraine.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the base's lease would receive a 25-year extension. Russia pays $90 million per year for the base. There was no word on any change under the new deal.

Ukrainian opposition figures quickly criticized the deal, saying the lease extension violated the constitution.

Ukraine's previous president, Viktor Yushchenko, had fought to kick the fleet out when its lease expired, calling it a hostile presence in Ukraine.
(Dallas News)

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The smiles on the two president’s faces belied the hard work that had gone into making the deal happen. According to the Kommersant daily the negotiating teams, headed by Prime Ministers Vladimir Putin and Nikolai Azarov, and including on the Russian side Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, had been up all night finalizing the details of the agreement. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich were just going through the formalities.

But there is a good reason for the smiles and the attention to detail. The deal addresses three of the most sensitive issues in Russian-Ukrainian relations: the future of the Russian Baltic Fleet, gas supplies, and potential Ukrainian membership in NATO.

The Black Sea fleet will get to stay in Sevastopol, its historic and only really viable base, until 2042; that saves Russia money on building new naval facilities on its own Black Sea coast, but it also gives it a “political-strategic” victory, said Volodymyr Fesenko, the head of the Penta Center for Applied Political Studies in Kiev. “Russia not only preserves a military presence in the Black Sea basin and on Ukrainian territory, but also has a factor of influence on external security policy and internal affairs in Ukraine,” he said.

According to some commentators, including the Kommersant daily, the jewel in the crown of that influence is that since NATO membership rules forbid the presence of non-alliance military bases on members’ territory, the agreement effectively puts a 30-year freeze on Ukraine’s aspirations to join the North Atlantic Alliance. NATO membership was a key policy of Yanukovich’s predecessor, former President Vitor Yushchenko, and the source of much of the ill feeling between his administration and Moscow.

The quid-pro-quo is a 30 percent discount on Russian gas deliveries, which, according to the deal, Ukraine will count as additional rent payments on the Sevastopol port. For Ukraine, that basically means a saving of $100 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas (for the record, the discount will be $100 per 1,000 cubic meters when prices are over $330, and 30 percent for lower prices. Current prices are around $334. The discount will apply to 30 billion cubic meters in 2010, and 40 billion from 2011 onwards).

At yesterday’s press conference Yanukovich said that Ukraine would receive from Russia “a real investment of resources, specifically gas,” amounting to “around $40 billion dollars” over the next ten years. “And this bears the hallmarks of an economic victory for Ukraine,” said Fesenko.

It’s so far difficult to tell whether an economic win for Ukraine means a loss for Russia. In a note released Thursday morning Alfa Bank briefly pointed out that the gas discount would come at the expense of the Russian government, rather than Gazprom, but a spokesman for the bank refused to comment further, saying that the company’s Kiev and Moscow analysts were still working out the long-term implications.

Sergei Markov, a political scientist and State Duma Deputy for the United Russia faction, insisted the $40 billion cited by Yanukovich in yesterday’s press conference was an investment on which Russia expects a return. “Russia is likely to get a lot of profit from joint Russian-Ukrainian economic projects,” he said. “It’s a popular but crude mistake to suppose that Russia is paying for the Black Sea Fleet with gas.” (Markov also contests the widely held assumption that the deal will preclude NATO membership, pointing out that when the George W. Bush administration was cheerleading Yushchenko’s membership bid, U.S. officials had said the Russian base ought not to be a barrier).

According to Markov, the deal around the Black Sea Fleet is actually much simpler. “Russia saves hundreds of millions of dollars that it would otherwise have to spend building new naval bases in Novorossiysk and elsewhere,” he said. “The deal is, Ukraine lets us stay in Sevastopol, and we share the savings.”

Not everyone is so convinced by either the supposed Chinese wall between the two agreements, or the benefits of the deal. Russian opposition leader and one-time advisor to former Ukrainian president Yushchenko Boris Nemtsov told the Kommersant daily that “we could have demanded more for that money,” and warned darkly of the “Lukashenko factor,” – a reference to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who has gained a reputation for taking Russian aid without reciprocation. (Others have also raised the Lukashenko parallel, but not always negatively. Victor Ozerov, the chairman of the Federation Council’s defense committee, told Kommersant that though the price was high, it was no less than Russia grants Belarus, “and Lukashenko threatens worse relations.” And Markov even suggested that improved relations with Kiev might strengthen Moscow’s hand in its troubled relations with Minsk).

Meanwhile, in Ukraine, the deal is proving even more divisive. The presence of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol is a subject that polarizes Ukrainian society, and it has unified the fractious opposition for the first time since the presidential elections, said Fesenko. “Two days ago Yushchenko, [former Prime Minister Yulia] Tymoshenko, [Arseniy] Yatsenyuk, [Vyacheslav] Kiriyenko, were all criticizing each other. Now they’re united in criticizing the agreement about the Black Sea Fleet,” he said. On Thursday afternoon it was reported that the Ukrainian Constitutional Court had approved the deal, but that doesn’t mean it will pass into law. “In the coming days we may see a parliamentary crisis as the opposition attempts to block ratification of the deal,” said Fesenko.
(Russia Profile)

NO MORE GAS CRISES? (Niente più crisi del gas?)

Ukraine's President-elect Viktor Yanukovych is expected to reach out to Russia as well as the West to safeguard Ukraine's position as an important energy transit country.

Yanukovych won Sunday's presidential election duel against Orange Revolution hero Yulia Tymoshenko and is now expected to reform the Ukrainian gas sector. Nearly 80 percent of Russian gas exports to Europe are sent through Ukraine, satisfying one-fifth of the continent's demand.

Alexander Rahr, an analyst with the Berlin-based German Council on Foreign Relations, met Yanukovych at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Rahr said the Ukrainian leader told him about his plan to hand the Ukrainian gas network, which is in dire need of modernization, to a consortium comprised of Ukrainian transit companies [first of all, Naftogaz], Russian state-controlled energy giant Gazprom and Western European energy companies.

"Yanukovych does not want to give up Ukraine's role as an important transit hub," Rahr told UPI in a telephone interview Wednesday.

The balancing act is intended to please Russia as well as the West, after the confrontational course steered by Kiev and Moscow in the past years only damaged Ukraine's role as a reliable transit country.

Current President Viktor Yushchenko, who led Ukraine into two gas crises with Russia, was eliminated in the first round of voting.

In the aftermath of the first gas conflict between Ukraine and Russia, two major Russian-European gas pipeline projects -- Nord Stream in Germany and South Stream in southeastern Europe -- were jumpstarted in a bid to bypass Ukraine and deliver Russian gas unilaterally to Europe.

Yanukovych is eager to at least render insignificant South Stream, which is not as far advanced as Nord Stream, for which most of the pipes have already been delivered. Reports say South Stream could almost halve Ukraine's transit fees -- a disastrous outlook for the notoriously bankrupt country.

Rahr said the gas relations between Russia and Ukraine will thus remain highly political.

"Ukraine can't afford to pay the bills for Russian gas," which easily amount to $1 billion per month, Rahr said.

That's why Kiev is expected to please the Kremlin on other fronts, such as giving up plans to join NATO or allowing for the Russian Black Sea fleet to remain in Sevastopol.

"If that happens, then Ukraine will get the same price for gas as Belarus," which is on friendlier terms with Russia, and thus enjoys below-market prices.

Yet Yanukovych will also have to please the West to counter fears that he is turning his back on Europe.

While inviting European companies into the pipeline consortium, he is expected to further privatize the Ukrainian economy and include Western firms in that process.

"And he won't be able to question the plan to eventually join the European Union," Rahr told UPI. "That's where the Ukrainians want to go, because it's a well-functioning economic circle, and one that promises prosperity. In that regard, Russia is no alternative."
(Energy Daily)