Don't get me wrong. Russia, of course, has the right to charge market prices for its gas. But the petty, vindictive and hypocritical manner in which Putin has gone about this does not befit the leader of a country that now holds the presidency of the G8.==
Do you ready put YOUR money where you mouth? Go fund Ukraine bill for gas.
WHY on earth russian budget has to subcidy Ukraine which FIRSTLY not secondly turned Russia down?
Putin would be fool and be impeached if he forfeits the russian money to Ukraine. Not anymore!
In English, old boy?
Funny that the Russians would want to impeach Putin for bullying Ukraine but not for cosying up to Islam Karimov. Apparently a man who orders the biggest mass killing of demonstrators since Tianamen square is very welcome in the Kremlin.
Not to mention of course Belarus (price of Russian gas: $47 per thousand cubic metres) or Turkmenistan.
Putin and his ex-KGB crony thugs in the Kremlin are full of the worst kind of nationalist zeal, and are obssessed with a desire to make Russia great again. That means, for them, not winning the admiration of the rest of the world by creating a free market democracy but forcing the respect of other by ruling through fear. Russia, as it always has done, prefers to be feared rather than admired. That's something the rest of us should be deeply, deeply worried about.