President Dmitri Medvedev (1965- ), greeting Ukrainian Prime Minister Yuliya Timoshenko (1960- ), in the Kremlin. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (1952- ) is in the background.
The gas crisis, which has kept Europe on tenterhooks for almost a fortnight, is nearing a settlement. Later today, documents are due to be signed in Moscow in the presence of Russian and Ukrainian Prime Ministers Vladimir Putin and Yuliya Timoshenko to finalise the latest Russian-Ukrainian agreements on gas supplies. In the past 24 hours, Gazprom and the Ukrainian energy company Naftogaz have prepared for signing the package of documents that are needed to ensure a resumption of gas deliveries to Europe. The documents specifically deal with new versions of the contract for gas transit and an agreement on gas deliveries to the Ukraine. The settlement was made feasible owing to agreements reached by Prime Ministers Putin and Timoshenko on Saturday night.
In keeping with the agreements, this year, Kiev will pay 80 percent of the current European price for Russian gas. Russia’s gas transit tariff will remain what it was last year. The two countries will switch over to the European price formation as of January next year. This holds both for the cost of gas and tariffs for the pumping of gas across the Ukraine. Once the agreement is signed and comes into force, it is safe to claim the gas crisis is over. At least, Ms Timoshenko said the Ukraine will resume all natural gas deliveries right after the agreement is signed. You may remember that this crisis was provoked by the Ukraine, which cut off the transit gas pipelines on 7 January. Many European countries, above all those in the Balkans, have suffered from a major fuel deficit as a result and have been compelled to halt production and cut off heating in residential houses.
The crisis made politicians, suppliers, and consumers alike concentrate on the necessity of optimising gas delivery routes and creating mechanisms to prevent similar situations from ever happening again. As a part of this effort, President Medvedev called for an emergency meeting to solve the crisis. He drew attention to this need for controlling structures during the gas summit held in the Moscow Kremlin on Saturday, a conference that set the stage for the settlement of the crisis.
He said, “I think that we should learn all the possible lessons from what happened and set up both a bilateral mechanism to prevent this kind of conflict in future and a multilateral one that would involve all interested nations. Again, I’d like to emphasise one simple idea. Now, however much we may try to point out that the crisis came as a result of bilateral misunderstanding, a controversy between Russia and the Ukraine, this sort of problem does complicate things for a great number of nations, and we, therefore, need international mechanisms. As for the diversification of gas delivery routes, Russia is building the Nord Stream and South Stream gas pipelines, with the former to be laid across the bed of the Baltic Sea, whilst the latter shall be laid across the bed of the Black Sea. The two will remove the risks in Russian gas transit to Europe and boost European energy security”.
19 January 2009
Yevgeni Kryshkin
Voice of Russia World Service
http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=rus&q=98363&cid=19&p=19.01.2009
Editor’s Note:
Do note well who is NOT involved. Firstly, Viktor Yushchenko is out of the loop. He is dead meat, politically. Yuliya is going to take the credit for this; as well she should, and, make no mistake on it, she smells Yushchenko’s blood in the water. His popularity rating is even lower than GWB’s, and with the departure of his American sugar daddy, his end is only a matter of time. Yuliya is a land-shark, and she, certainly, senses his loss of support (Now, where is the Coroner of Munchkin Land when one needs him? “I thoroughly examined him… he is truly and absolutely dead” (backed by a full Munchkin chorus, of course)).
Secondly, despite loud posturing and posing in the American and British press, the US and its British running-dog-lackeys were cut out of the process. A simple fact tells the story. The Russians received 80 percent of their demanded price; whereas the Ukrainians had to pay approximately double what they tendered. No matter if you slice this bologna thick or thin, the Ukrainians lost, lost publicly, and in a humiliating matter. Yuliya found out that the EU was not going to pressure Russia. Ergo, she dealt. Of course, she is going to use this in her electoral campaign against Yushchenko! Truly, one has to pity this individual. Everyone, save for himself, knows that the play is essentially over. Even his inner circle knows this. He and Saakashvili are being left to rot on the vine by the Russians. It is Führerbunker redux for the Orange and Rose “Revolutions”.
Both of these paladins of “democracy” are going down, and their own people are going to fit the noose about their necks (if they are “lucky”, they shall flee to the USA and become professors at small liberal-arts colleges in New England… then, they shall have to deal with academic politics… a fate worse than death!). In this, one can see the collapse of the Cheney/Rice scheme in the Russian Near Abroad. Everyone now knows that the USA has nothing left in the store-cupboard. Is this the “retreat from Moscow” of the Bushies? Do remember what happened to M Bonaparte…
BMD
Voices from Russia 
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