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KGB Tightens Screws on Ukraine (Natural Gas Story)
The Brussels Journal ^ | 01 January 2006 | Paul Belien

Posted on 01/01/2006 10:29:43 AM PST by lowbuck

In the 1930s Russia robbed Ukraine of its food supplies. The Kremlin deliberately created a food shortage. Ukrainian grain was collected and stored in grain elevators that were guarded by the Soviet army and secret police units (the NKVD, the predecessor of the KGB) while Ukrainians were starving in the immediate area. The result of the man-made famine of 1932-33 was the death of 7 million people. The famine was instigated by the Russians to break the spirit of the Ukrainians and force them into collectivisation and submission to Moscow. “Let us do it again,” Vladimir Putin, a former officer of the KGB, the Soviet Gestapo, and a worthy successor to Josef Stalin, said today.

The criminals who ruled Russia under the Soviet regime, and who bankrupted not only their own country but the whole of Eastern Europe, are still in charge in Moscow. Today, Russia’s state-run gas company Gazprom has cut gas supplies to Ukraine. The cut is the result of Russia’s unilateral decision to raise the gas price for Ukraine from 50$ to 230$ per 1,000 cubic metres of gas. Ukraine, still recovering from 70 years of Soviet occupation, is unable to pay this price and proposed a compromise of 110$, but Moscow wants to punish Ukraine because its politicians are not submissive enough to the Kremlin. Gazprom charges the Moscow-friendly dictatorship in Belarus (another country run by a former KGB agent) only 47$ per 1,000 cubic metres of gas. Armenia and Georgia are charged 110$, Romania 280$ and the EU on average 240$. According to the Kremlin, nations that want to be free have to pay the price of the free nations.

Last week Andrei Illarionov resigned as Mr Putin’s economic advisor. Mr Illarionov, who never collaborated with the former Communist regime, is an honest man. He accused the Kremlin of using gas as “a weapon.” Last week Ukraine, which depends heavily on Russian gas, tried to find a new gas supplier and approached Turkmenistan. Unfortunately, Turkmenistan is also run by former KGB criminals. Gazprom thwarted the Ukrainian plan by buying Turkmen gas stocks itself, at a price of... 65$ per 1,000 cubic metres.

Ukraine is dependent on Russia for 30% of its gas supplies. Western Europe, however, is dependent for the gas that it buys in Russia on pipelines running through Ukraine. Consequently Gazprom cannot simply cut all supplies to Ukraine. It has reduced the supplies to the pipeline by 15%, which is the percentage of the total volume that is used by Ukraine. If it wants to do so Kiev can tap into the Russian supplies to the West in order to secure its own gas supplies. The Russians have warned the Ukrainians that if they do so, they will be considered to be thieves. Western Europe is concerned, too.

Some EU countries rely heavily on Russian gas. Germany, for example, gets about 30% of its gas supplies from Russia, which makes it as dependent on Russian gas as Ukraine. If Kiev uses the gas for its own needs, to prevent Ukrainians freezing to death through Putin’s actions as they starved to death through the actions of his predecessor Stalin eight decades ago, it is Germany that will be left in the cold. On Wednesday EU gas industry experts will meet in Brussels to discuss the crisis.

It is easy to see what would have happened today if the gas pipeline that the Russians and Germans are planning to build on the Baltic seabed had already been completed. This pipeline, which is to be ready by 2010, will enable the Russians to deliver gas directly to Germany, bypassing all countries in between. It will allow Mr Putin to reassert Russian dominance over the whole of Eastern and Central Europe. It is time that the West sees Putin for what he really is: the new Stalin. If the Baltic pipeline gets built it will mean the end of freedom and democracy in Eastern Europe. Again the West, as it did earlier in Yalta, will have sold out the East to the Russian bear.

Today, January 1, 2006, Russia also takes over the chairmanship of the G8 group of industrial nations for the first time in history. This provides Mr Putin, the executioner of Ukraine, with an opportunity to emphasise Russia’s role in international affairs. Though the Russian economy is peanuts compared to those of the US, Canada, Japan, Germany, France, Britain and Italy, it has been admitted into the club of developed democracies because Russia has enough oil and gas to keep Western Europe supplied for years to come. Some US Senators have argued that Russia should not have been allowed in as a member. What is happening today shows that they are right.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Russia
KEYWORDS: easterneurope; energy; eu; gas; gazprom; naturalgas; orangerevolution; russia; ukraine
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To: globalheater
When one side suddenly breaking the contract and raising the price to the ridiculously high level, then for me it is a blackmail.

Beside you are using the term “world market price”, could you provide me exact number, how much is it? And I’m not interested what is the price in US. Russia selling gas to the different countries for different price. Gas from other sources for example from Arabs or Norwegian again has other price. Russians themselves buy gas from Turkmenistan for pennies.
21 posted on 01/02/2006 5:57:55 AM PST by Lukasz
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Comment #22 Removed by Moderator

To: vox_PL

Yikes, that whole situation is getting interesting over there.


23 posted on 01/02/2006 9:51:31 AM PST by Ciexyz (Let us always remember, the Lord is in control.)
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To: RusIvan

Ken Timmerman told me this over 5 years ago at a FReeper event, but if your eyes and ears don't work, you can always use your sense of smell.

CAN MOSCOW BE TRUSTED?
Russia's hidden nuclear missiles
Clinton turned blind eye to major treaty violations


© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com

Editor's note: This is the first in a major series of WorldNetDaily investigative reports on Russian arms-control violations and the very real nuclear threat they indicate, by former Time magazine reporter Kenneth R. Timmerman. Part 2, on the secret nuclear war-fighting command centers in Russia, runs tomorrow, exclusively in WorldNetDaily.

By Kenneth R. Timmerman
© 2000, WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.


WASHINGTON -- As President Clinton met with Russian President Putin in Moscow to discuss nuclear arms control over the weekend, an old story from the Cold War has resurfaced that sheds doubt on Russia's reliability as a negotiating partner: nuclear-tipped SS-23 missiles that the Soviet Union never declared to the United States, in direct violation of a 1987 arms-control agreement.

These missiles, which are now slated to be dismantled in Slovakia this month, were hidden by the Red army in deep underground bunkers in Czechoslovakia, despite Soviet promises to withdraw all nuclear theater missiles from Europe and destroy them.

WorldNetDaily has obtained exclusive video footage of the SS-23s, that was acquired clandestinely by U.S. intelligence agencies. The Soviet-era tapes show the missiles on operational deployment in Eastern Europe with the Red army.

Soviet-era photograph of the 4-axle SS-23 launch vehicle, in launch position, believed to be equipped with an earth-penetrating warhead.

During the Cold War, the SS-23 missiles were equipped with a 100-kiloton nuclear warhead and were fired from wheeled launchers, making them virtually impossible to destroy once they were deployed from their underground storage sites.

The Soviets secretly deployed the SS-23s in East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria in 1986. In the event of war in Europe between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, they would have given the Soviets a clear military advantage by allowing them to launch a surprise nuclear strike at the heart of NATO forces in Germany.

Under the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Agreement signed in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 8, 1987, President Reagan and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to destroy all existing theater nuclear missiles in Europe, including all SS-23s.

Soviet-era photo, supplied to the United States in compliance with the INF Treaty in 1987, showing the complete SS-23 missile, including what U.S. intelligence analysts believe to be an earth penetrator nuclear warhead.

While the Soviets allowed U.S. inspectors to witness the destruction of the longer-range SS-20 missiles, which constituted the bulk of their force, they secretly rushed several batteries of the shorter-range SS-23s to East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria just prior to signing the Treaty, and never declared them or destroyed them.

"This is a clear violation of the INF Treaty," said Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., "and raises disturbing questions about the commitment of the Russian government to arms control agreements."

Article IV of the INF Treaty (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader to open) states: "Each Party shall eliminate all its intermediate-range missiles and launchers of such missiles, and all support structures and support equipment ... so that no later than three years after entry into force of this Treaty and thereafter no such missiles, launchers, support structures or support equipment shall be possessed by either Party."

SS-23 launch vehicle in the travel position, on display with the OKA missile at a Moscow military museum. The Russians identify the SS-23 as having been "destroyed in compliance with the Agreement between USSR and USA to Destroy Medium and Shorter Range Missile Systems."

The SS-23 was named as one of the missiles slated for total elimination under the Treaty. All SS-20 missiles were reportedly dismantled by June 1991.

Weldon and other members of the House Armed Services Committee are planning to visit the current storage site of the SS-23s in Martin, Slovakia, since the United States is footing the bill for dismantling the missiles, a process set to begin later this month.

"We want to film these missiles and then ask the Russians some hard questions about their commitment to arms control," Weldon said.

Weldon and Maryland Republican Roscoe Bartlett are concerned that Russia may be hiding much larger reserves of nuclear weapons in a vast underground site built into the Ural Mountains, known as Yamantau.

"We're going to ask the Russians, here's what you were doing in Eastern Europe; what are you doing at home?" said Weldon.

Soviet-era photo, supplied to the United States in compliance with the INF Treaty in 1987, showing the body of the SS-23 rocket, minus the nuclear warhead.

Six missiles, two launchers and several dummy nuclear warheads will be dismantled by the Slovak Republic with U.S. help later this year. A total of 73 SS-23s were secretly deployed by the Soviets in Eastern Europe, according to Arms Control and Disarmament Agency compliance reports. If all 73 missiles had been armed with nuclear warheads, their combined firepower would have equaled 365 times the power of the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.

When the United States received the first reports about the existence of a secret SS-23 force in September 1991, "it sent an electric shock through the intelligence community," a former intelligence analyst told WND. "The realization that the Soviets had a secret nuclear missile force undermined all our premises about arms control."

There had long been a debate about the actual size of the Soviet nuclear force, because of large numbers of non-deployed missiles and warheads the Soviets were known to keep in reserve.

"Here was a real, clandestine missile force -- something the Soviets were trying to hide from us," the analyst said. "It risked undermining every arms control treaty we had ever signed with them."

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimated in 1986 that the Soviet Union had a clandestine strategic "reserve" force of several thousand weapons, as large as Russia's current declared force, making a mockery of arms control commitments with the United States.

Weldon agrees. "If arms control agreements are not upheld by both parties they are meaningless pieces of paper."

The Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, which was recently subsumed within the State Department, quietly accused the Soviets of "bad faith." It equated the secret deployment of the SS-23s in Eastern Europe to other arms-control violations, notably the construction of a phased array radar system at Krasnoyarsk.

Russian officials later admitted that the Krasnoyarsk radar was built on the orders of the Soviet Politburo as a battle-management system, in conscious violation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.

A 1988 photograph, published in Paris Match, showing the body of SS-23 rockets withdrawn with Soviet forces from East Germany as part of the 200 declared SS-23s the U.S.S.R. agreed to dismantle and destroy under the INF Treaty. The U.S. now believes the Soviet Union had an additional 73 missiles deployed secretly in Warsaw Pact countries.

The last mention of the SS-23s appears in the May 1995 ACDA compliance report, which states that the SS-23 missiles were "transferred with their connecting sections, which would enable their use with nuclear warheads." This led the United States to conclude that the Soviet Union had negotiated the INF Treaty "in bad faith."

Despite these concerns, the May 1995 report states, "the United States does not intend to address this issue in future reports but will continue its ongoing efforts to see that these missiles are destroyed."

The first public mention that undeclared missiles still existed in former Warsaw Pact countries dates from August 1997, when State Department spokesman James Rubin told reporters in Washington that negotiations were underway with both Slovakia and Bulgaria to dismantle the missiles. He called the talks "action with friendly governments," and said the U.S. stood ready to help them destroy the SS-23s.

The Bulgarians initially balked at destroying the missiles, stating it was in Bulgaria's national interest to retain them, but eventually complied. Slovakia said it didn't have the money to dismantle the missiles on its own. The controversy dragged on until earlier this year.

Then on April 27, the U.S. chargé d'affaires in Bratislava, Douglas Hengel, signed a memorandum of understanding with Slovakia's Chief of Staff Gen. Milan Cerovsky, providing for U.S. financing of the destruction of the last six SS-23 missiles by the end of October, with work beginning in June. Altogether, the destruction will cost U.S. taxpayers $385,000, according to the memorandum.

Soviet-era photo, supplied to the United States in compliance with the INF Treaty in 1987, showing the 4-axle launch vehicle for the SS-23 system.

The Slovak missiles are from a battery of six missile launchers and 30 missiles, initially deployed to an underground base known as Site Adam about 100 miles northeast of Prague, Czech embassy spokesman Martin Weiss told WND. Site Adam was originally part of a chain of defensive underground sites ringing the borders of Nazi Germany and Austria, Weiss said, built in the 1930s. While many similar sites have been opened to the public -- including one that has become a hot tourist spot -- Site Adam remains off-limits and is still used by the Czech military.

Investigators working with the House Armed Services Committee in Washington told WND that Site Adam was one of several underground sites in Eastern Europe reinforced by Warsaw Pact forces during the Cold War as a nuclear storage bunker. It is believed to extend some 20 stories below ground.

The Soviet army hastily pulled out of Eastern Europe over the summer of 1990, taking the nuclear warheads from the SS-23s along with them. U.S. officials believe it was not until September 1991 that Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel learned about the existence of the secret force of SS-23 missiles and informed the United States.

As Czechoslovakia itself began to break up in mid-1992, Havel resigned and the military assets of the country were split between the Czech and Slovak Republics. Havel was elected as president of the newly formed Czech Republic in 1993.

According to the Czech defense ministry, six of the 30 SS-23 missiles were transferred to the Slovak Republic in 1993 as their share of formerly joint military assets. The remaining missiles were dismantled quietly by the Czech Republic in 1995-1996.

Slovakia is now seeking to join NATO, and invited NATO military attachés stationed in Bratislava to view the missiles on May 10.

A 1988 photograph, published in Paris Match, showing partially dismantled SS-23 missiles, with the nuclear warheads separated from the rocket bodies.

"Warsaw Pact plans called for these missiles being ready to fire within 20 minutes of deployment," said Slovak diplomat Jan Orlovski. "Our people were able to deploy them in front of NATO military attachés in 17 minutes" in a mock operational exercise conducted near the city of Martin.

The missiles will be dismantled at the Novaky military base in Slovakia between now and October, while the launchers are being disassembled in military workshops in the city of Trencin.

Related story in today's WND: Arms control cover-up?

COMING TOMORROW: In his next report, titled 'Inside Russia's magic mountain,' reporter Ken Timmerman describes how, deep in the Urals, a mountain called Yamantau is believed to conceal one of Russia's darkest nuclear secrets -- a secret which President Clinton, members of Congress, and the U.S. military top brass have raised repeatedly with Russia's leaders, without ever receiving a response. According to U.S. intelligence sources, the Russian government has pumped more than $4.5 billion into building a sprawling underground complex at Yamantau -- impervious to direct nuclear assault -- that spans an area as large as Washington, D.C., inside the Beltway, or some 400 square miles.

Kenneth R. Timmerman is a veteran investigative reporter who has published three books on the arms trade and intelligence issues. In congressional testimony last year, he revealed the existence of an ICBM program in Iran known as the "Kosar," helping to spark legislation that imposed sanctions on Russia for transferring missile technology to Iran. A contributing editor to Reader's Digest, the former Time magazine correspondent is currently writing a book on Bill Clinton's corrupt relationship with communist China.


24 posted on 01/02/2006 11:12:36 AM PST by STD (Grab Your Ankles, I'm From the Gub'ment)
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To: STD

Ken Timmerman told me this over 5 years ago at a FReeper event, but if your eyes and ears don't work, you can always use your sense of smell. ===

What Timmerman and what is has to do with today gas thievery? You change subject? Or just cann't find no other dirt to throw to russia?


25 posted on 01/02/2006 11:25:12 AM PST by RusIvan ("THINK!" the motto of IBM)
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To: lowbuck
(In my best Jerry Seinfeld voice):

Why do they call it 'natural gas'? Is there such a thing as 'unnatural gas'?

26 posted on 01/02/2006 11:28:03 AM PST by Revolting cat! ("In the end, nothing explains anything.")
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To: RusIvan

Nevermind the genocide of Ukraianes


27 posted on 01/02/2006 12:21:21 PM PST by STD (Grab Your Ankles, I'm From the Gub'ment)
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To: Lukasz

The stock market price for natural gas is around 200 $ / 1000 cubic meteres. And that's what russia is asking from the ukraine.

Certainly the gas prices of different sources are different but prices are made on the stock market and don't differ that much. It's similar to the oil prices.

Strong differences can be found where deals are made like russia does with e.g. Belarus. Belarus is still embedded in the socialistic (or watever one calls that system) market structures and sells products to russia well below market prices and thus pays only about 60$ / 1000 cm³. It's like a compensation deal.

The Ukrainians are on their way to break loose from that system (orange revolution) by doing so they e.g. sold steel ovens to an indian steel giant now producing with the up to now highly subsidized ng from russia.

Russia never intendet to subsidize Indian steel production and I don't see anything black mailish about asking the proper prices.


28 posted on 01/03/2006 12:57:53 AM PST by globalheater (we need more thoughts then opinions)
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To: globalheater

O, people, chill down. There's no need to get hysterical.
On the one hand, pacta sunt servanda, but on the other, vae victis. It's business, nothing personal.

P.S. There wasn't any genocide of the Ukrainians in the early 1930s. The Russians suffered just as badly. It wasn't intended massacre at all. It's simply accelerated industrialisation; centuries of enclosures, poor laws, hangings and transportations condenced into one decade.


29 posted on 01/08/2006 4:55:50 AM PST by A Russian
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To: Revolting cat!

there's lpg liquid petrol gas.

This is unlike the NG obtained from distilling crude oil (the so called light ends) or by fuel cracking. Cracking means making lighter crude oil products like gas for car fuel or liquid petrol gas from heavier ones like gas oil or tar)

Natural gas is from a natural stock of gas - liquid petrol gas is a byproduct of fuel production.

LPG contains more butane - is easier to liquify and contains more carbon per gramm then NG
NG contains more propane - needs higher pressure to be liquid at room temperatures and contains more hydrogen per gramm.


30 posted on 01/09/2006 12:50:39 AM PST by globalheater (we need more thoughts then opinions)
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