Posted on 05/13/2006 7:23:10 AM PDT by A. Pole
RUSSIA: Russia is imposing a quadruple hike in gas prices to neighbour Belarus, triggering fears of a crisis similar to the stand-off earlier this year with Ukraine.
State-owned gas giant Gazprom has told Belarus that it must pay world prices for its gas from December if it wants to continue getting supplies.
Ukraine's failure to pay a similar gas price hike on January 1st saw Russia turn off the taps, triggering a crisis that spread across much of Europe.
Critics say the demand, on one of Europe's poorest countries, is being used as leverage for Gazprom to get control of Belarus's state-owned gas pipelines.
The move is likely to sharpen anxieties in EU countries already concerned that the Kremlin may be using gas supply as an economic weapon.
The price increase for Belarus is unusual because, unlike Ukraine, its president Alexander Lukashenko is a staunch ally of Russia.
Mr Lukashenko won re-election last month in a vote condemned as fraudulent by the EU and the US, but welcomed as fair by Moscow.
Gazprom insists the demand is based on commercial reality: Belarus pays $47 for a cubic metre of gas now, compared to the European price of $230, under a subsidy contract that runs to the end of the year.
The company says that, as with Ukraine, it wants to end the practice of offering subsidies to former Soviet states to bring it into line with modern market practices.
Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said the demand was being made now to give Belarus time to adjust. "So that that issue of gas prices for Belarus should not become the topic of New Year's Eve television programmes, we want to agree in advance how to work next year," he told Russian television.
Belarus has made no official comment on the demand, with Mr Lukashenko a virtual recluse since his March 19th election victory. Diplomats in Moscow say that if the Belarus leader sells his distribution network to Gazprom, he is likely to be offered a fresh subsidy agreement, in part because his impoverished country cannot pay the increase.
[...]
Yep! Next to a Iranian pipeline. One thing Gasprom can not stand for sure is price competition. :-)
I am absolutely not impressed.
It can not get worse. Therefore it would be a pleasure to see Luka disappear. I prefer any of Puntin's puppet regimes to this a**hole. It would bring movement into the situation and the outcome in the long run could be a real democracy.
Demand is rising and so the price. I am not sure if Iranian gas/oil will be enough for India, not speaking about China.
Also pipeline from Siberia to China is much easier to build (the construction already started).
Calm your boggle! See post #13 who explained my memory-deficit. And thanks for your explanatory rant. When I first read this, I just remembered reading about a Russian who was CEO of some Russian oil company that got put in jail for corruption. Couldn't remember the specifics. One good thing about FR. If you don't know something but the vaguest of details, there's always a FReeper that can fill in the blanks.
Sounds like the moral here is that if you accept rule by the corrupt, you get corruption.
So how far do you have to go from the kremlin in the center of mockba to find any Russians?
"However, that does not cover production cost, and does not include transit. To expect gas for $50 today would be INSANE."
The only thing insane is your analysis - If the Russians are buying Turkman gas for $50, and paying Ukraine $2 for transport to Europe where the "market price" is $250, why do you justify Putins shutting off the valve when Ukraine did the same thing with turkmanistan?
Russia "was able to stand ground against German army one/two years later? "
Let's translate that from Russian.
"Russia was able to kill one German with 100 Ukrainians and Siberians at Stalingrad."
Stalin was smart - he put his nationalist enemies in the breech virtually with pointed sticks to stop the Nazis.
Pretty far actually - almost as far as trying to find a Ukrainian that will admit to their complicity in Soviet crimes. But, to find apologists of these very crimes all one has to do is log on to Free Republic and ping "spanalot"
"Russia "was able to stand ground against German army one/two years later? "
Let's translate that from Russian.
"Russia was able to kill one German with 100 Ukrainians and Siberians at Stalingrad."
Stalin was smart - he put his nationalist enemies in the breech virtually with pointed sticks to stop the Nazis. "
Spanalot, you never cease to amaze me with your "talent" to write revisionist history. Revision of history is a very Soviet trait. Your Soviet handlers have trained you well.
What a cunning Russian Stalin was. And why he was not able to use this tactic against Finland?
LOL! Dzhugazhvili a cunning Russian. Now all the folks in Georgia who continue to memorialize this thug will be really mad at you for calling him a Russian ;)
If we see it without too many emotions the following scenario is quite likely:
1. Ukraine and Belarus have to pay normal market prices. They will not have the chance to siphon Gas in the future. Russia will supply but only to its own conditions.
2. Polands supply will be ensured over Germany, but they probably have to deal with much higher prices.
3. For Germany very little is going to change. The gas will stay expensive, but the supply will be sure.
4. China needs gas, but they are unreliable and dangerous clients and the size of the pipelines is due to the long distances quite huge and expensive. Do not forget that the enonomic centers of China are in the far far east and not near the central Russian boarder. That means that the Russian gas fields that are interesting to Europe will continue to supply Europe in the future for infrastructural reasons. The fields in the Russian far east will be used for the Chinese market.
5. The Iranians will prefer the Chinese to the Indians since they have less political trouble with them. Therefore I am quite sure that they are going to buildt a dense net of pipelines between both countries. I would do if I were them.
6. Besides of that the new fields under the Barents sea will be used for liquified gas from Norway and Russia. This will be used by Poland and others to become more "independent" from Russia (which is impossible in the long run).
Russia does not have that many friends on this planet in the moment. Therefore I doubt that they risk their really good relationship with Germany (it remained good under Merkel) through idiotic muscle flexing in eastern Europe. It would simply not be that logical to do that.
Maybe, but where this pipeline would go?
If so why Iran would prefer them over the India which is much closer.
The Iranians will prefer the Chinese to the Indians since they have less political trouble with them.
What type of trouble?
"Spanalot, you never cease to amaze me with your "talent" to write revisionist history. "
Actually, the Kremlin spin that you relate is the problem.
Here are the facts - Read and Weep!
The first one relates the assassination of the
Russian General who sent unarmed Ukrainians up against German mechanized forces.
"Once outside Soviet territory, the Red Army went on a rampage that left some 3 million dead, an orgy of revenge that affected mainly civilians and refugees, while in the borderlands civil wars broke out as early as 1943, resulting in brutal massacres on both sides. Ukrainian insurgents, for example, killed one of the heroes of Stalingrad, the Commander of the First Ukrainian Front, General Nikolay Vatutin, in February 1944"
Here are the details on the Siberians that Stalin sent to their deaths. You know where Siberia is - that's where the Russian gulags were - where the Kremlin had sent political prisoners for hundreds of years. So much for the "Russian" sacrifice of WWII.
"One of the most memorable of these sketches is In The Main Line of Attack (Napravleniye glavnovo udara). It describes life and death in a division of Siberian troops who had to bear the brunt of the most frenzied period of Nazi attacks on Stalingrad, withstanding 80 straight hours of bombardment, and more. "
You're apparently unaware that the disputed land in question IS A MILITARY BASE.
Further as you WELL know most of the citizens in the area would side with Russia against Ukraine's pitiful excuse for an army.
You can bet Russia has tons of espionage in Ukraine since Ukraine has threated to pint mislles at them.
There's a reson Ukraine has never historically been it's own nation; it is utterly incapable of defending itself.
Even today Ukraine throws itself at the Poles like a girl without a date on prom night.
The point is the western MSM continually make it look like Hodorkovsky was some model of capitalism and freedom when in fact he was a corrupt liar stealing from his country and his people, and an enemy to democracy.
"Once outside Soviet territory, the Red Army went on a rampage that left some 3 million dead, an orgy of revenge that affected mainly civilians and refugees, while in the borderlands civil wars broke out as early as 1943, resulting in brutal massacres on both sides. Ukrainian insurgents, for example, killed one of the heroes of Stalingrad, the Commander of the First Ukrainian Front, General Nikolay Vatutin, in February 1944"
Interesting that you would post an example of how Ukrainian insurgents were doing the Nazis bidding and able to operate with Nazi assistance. Weep? I do "weep" when a FR member applauds and idolizes people who were allied with Nazi Germany - no matter how vile the Soviets were, they were technically our Allies and the US and British forces were relying on the Soviets to keep the Nazis bogged down. By hampering the Soviets your Ukrainian heros (Nazi allies) were in fact resisting our efforts to defeat the Nazis and were in reality on the side of our enemy. That you continue to lavish praise and admiration on them shows you are willing to morally ally yourself with any vile thug as long as they are killing Russians - even if it means cheerleading enemies that killed brave American soldiers.
I don't think there is an easy way to a market economy. The only way to slow the process is to give control to politicians over when things become deregulated, and denationalized. and the extent to which that slows thee transition is directly proportional to the amoung of (inevitable) corruption of the players involved. The people get taken advantage of either way so the faster the better. (Because the faster, the less time the people are taken advantage of for). Especially in this scenerio seeing as Belarus doesnt own the resource in question, and as long as they get it cheap they will never be forced to break up the current soviet style economy.
A western appointed leader like Yushchenko wouldn't denationalize anything in Belarus (Just as Yushchenko has only left alone or renationalized in Ukraine). He would just start a nazi style nationalist movement in Belarus, and setup missles and bases for NATO (The military arm of the UN).
As for the gas pipeline I suspect it is a good investment for the germans, though you will probably be paying to help develop it and in the near term mostly to solve a problem that isn't your own. Still Poland and Ukraine are using increasingly antagonistic rhetoric, the time will come when Ukrain's antics or Poland insults do demand a real shutdown regardless o who is down the line. In this scenerio Europe benefits from lines that don't pass through the countries, and the countries directly attached to them benefit most.
That said, negotiations probably could have been better undertaken to give Germany a smaller increase in priec and more advantages, and it's likely from what you say that whats-his-name did sell out Germany in that sense.
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