“It doesn’t seem that Ukraine has much of a choice —”
Wrong. Work is already underway to reverse the flow of natural gas in the pipelines to supply the Ukraine from Weastern Europe at market prices. Although the move will not satisfy Ukraine’s supply and economic needs in the short term, new supplies can be delivered to the Ukraine in the mid-term and long term from a variety of sources. Western Europe in the long term is also going to need the same alternative supplies as the Ukraine. Those new supplies can come from massive fields in the Mediterranean, the North Sea, and fracking existing fields in Eastern Europe.
The problems may be especially difficult in the short term, but they are quite soluble in the long term. Loss of most of Europe as customers for Russia will have long term disastrous effects upon the economy of Russia as it did upon the Soviet Union.
There is no work underway at this time to reverse the flow. At this time, Western Europe is a natural gas importer from the same pipeline.
Maybe one day, years from now after other pipelines and LNG import terminals. But it will be many years from now..
Nahh, China will fill that gap and in fact it’s already begun. Will China as a major purchaser of Russian gas, their economy shall thrive.