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.
[...]
It was violated and null according to the most basic capitalist princibles when Ukraine stole gas.
Where's all Ukraine's natural gas?
If they have so much from the 1920s then they shold smartly use that and not import it from Russia.
A Ukraine and a Pole instrumented that plan, and as you well know key members of the red army that took over both Russia and Ukraine were UKRANIAN.
Trotsky?
Vlas Chubak?
Ukranians!
"That's right Gary, and tell us how the Ukrainians invented fire, electricity, the radio, television, and the Rubric's Cube."
Ah yes - another Straw Dog. How entertaining.
But here is the truth about the the origin of the "Russian' gas industry ) and why all the pipelines run thru Ukraine.
One quick note: Interesting that the "oppressed Ukrainians of the 1920s" were able to get the highly sought and hard to attain positions in the technical fields - I thought the Russians were oppressing them and discriminating against anything or anyone Ukrainian? Hmmm.
Now for the long answer
You left this out of your cut and paste:
"The leadership of Gazprom (the Russian company) in the 90s was largely of Ukrainian origin."
"But after a while, some in Russia started questioning why a territory that persisted in seeing itself as independent should get the same access to cheap gas as Russian citizens, and began to ask Ukraine to pay international commercial rates. Gas continued to flow, but negotiations became heated; price increases were announced but remained unpaid, talks of delinquent debt and penalties started to fly around, and threats to cut off supplies were made. Emergency payments (or promises of payments) were made, barter deals signed, but in the end Ukraine kept on paying almost nothing for the gas it received (and in the early 90s, that gas represented about 100 bcm/y (billion cubic meters), i.e. more than it exported to Europe, including former Warsaw pact members). On 3 occasions (one in 1992, and twice in 1993), Russia cut off deliveries to Ukraine for a couple of days.
Each time, Ukraine reduced deliveries to Europe by the same amount, effectively diverting transit gas. That rang alarm bells in various countries like France, Germany and Italy, and Russia hurriedly restored deliveries. Deliveries to Europe have not been cut since then."
"Corruption in the Ukrainian gas industry meant that certain officials took advantage of Gazprom's inability to enforce payment in order to enrich themselves. As in Russia, the final consumers in Ukraine quite often paid for their gas, but the bill collector chose not to pass on these revenues to Gazprom (in Russia for political reasons, and in Ukraine thanks to control over the export routes)."
"Delivering gas to Ukraine is a source of vast profits for a few well placed people in Ukraine and within Gazprom - and obviously in their respective governments, and there is infighting underway for that cake, but certainly no intention to return the loot either to Gazprom/ the Russian State or to the Ukrainian consumers who already pay their gas at fairly high prices."
Why would you leave that sort of info out? Hmmm.
"I thought the Russians were oppressing them and discriminating against anything or anyone Ukrainian? Hmmm"
Yes Romanov, the Russians killed 10 million ukrainians in the 30's and replaced them with Russians.
Hypocrassy is right - and here is something explaining why all the pip;ines are in Ukraine -
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"the Soviet gas industry was born in Western Ukraine in the 1920s, and the country built the infrastructure of the industry. Most of the technical universities and research centers for the gas industry were based in Ukraine, and a good chunk of the engineers and workers that developed the giant Siberian fields in the 60s were Ukrainian. "
No that'd be Ukranians killing Ukranians because they wanted to enforce collectivization you racist twit.
the by all means now that it is sovereign the Ukranians should be rice off their valuable natural resource!
"Yes Romanov, the Russians killed 10 million ukrainians in the 30's and replaced them with Russians."
How charming - you never can get those totals right. But let's provide you with some historical accuracy:
1.) The SOVIETS, to include Belarusians, Ukrainians, Russians, Mengrelians, Georgians, well you get the point - Killed millions of Kazakhs, Southern Russians, Cossacks, Ukrainians, etc., in the man-made famine (demicide).
2.) Kaganovich - look him up. Ukrainian Jew who was the architect for these crimes.
3.) Ukrainian complicity in the demicide: The NKVD could not have been able to enforce the Politburo crimes without the participation of Ukrainian communist party members - if you think they could then you would also have to believe that the Ukrainians were a.) helplessly incapable of fighting for their own lives, and b.) "invaded" by a foreign entity they didn't even try to repeal.
4.) Rewriting History to suit your nationalist goals is chauvanistic, attracts attention away from the victims, shows disrespect to the non-Ukrainian victims, and gives Ukrainian communists a "pass" on their own criminal behavior.
Don't forget the Tatars and the Mari's, and others...
WOW first time I hear from you this version. You always claimed that they gave up pipeline to Gazprom, shame on you if you deny your own words.
You hypocrites, the Russians conquered these nations and enslaved. They for sure found among them some collaborators but even some Jews helped Nazis to catch their compatriots. But nobody blame them! Rightfully, may I add.
The Russians conqured the Tatars? That's hilaerous.
Read up on history Lukas:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasion_of_Russia
The Tatars conqured Russia who eventually regained control of their lands.
They invaded the same Kievan Rus which came to Russia from KIEV, which you refuse to acknowledge has a far better claim to the culture and heritage of east Ukraine than you're little galacian friends.
Tatars (ie Mongols) came from Mongolia and enslaved/ruined Kievan Rus(Russia/Ukraine). Does the name Djingis Khan ring the bell for you? It took tremendous efforts for several generations of Russians to free Rus from this brutal yoke.
In this process Mongols/Tartars (who converted earlier to Islam) became subjects to Russian rule. Their culture and identity was respected and even today the half of Kazan is Tartar/Muslim with open mosques. This was much more generous treatment than Spaniards gave to their former Muslim opressors.
"You hypocrites, the Russians conquered these nations and enslaved. They for sure found among them some collaborators but even some Jews helped Nazis to catch their compatriots. But nobody blame them! Rightfully, may I add."
How historically inaccurate and misleading. If your premise was correct and there were only "some collaborators" then you wouldn't have seen the vast numbers of Poles, Ukrainians, Hungarians, Belarusians, Czechs, Latvians, Lithuanians, etc., in positions of leadership throughout the communist world.
Whereas the Nazi's found an ocassional Jewish person or two to turn in their fellow Jews, the Soviet system was created and ran by people of various ethnicities. Dzherzinsky comes to mind as a person who unleashed an evil so vile that it is felt today - and he was from???
For anyone from any country of the former Communist bloc to try to portray as some sort of Russian-only guilt is hypocritical and revisionist history written only to deflect from one's complicity in said crimes.
Isn't it amazing that when there Tatars that are defeated, there's Russians everywhere.
And when the Nazis are defeated, there are Russians everywhere.
But when 30 million are killed by by Russian Genocide, there is not a one to be found - only Jews, Poles, Ukrainians, and Georgians
Boring stuff, I expect from all of you to hear that all those nations willingly surrendered to the Russians.
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