A RUSSIAN BUSINESS NEWSLETTER

Vol 09 No 7

Published by: Michael F. Baehr

from the Moscow Times

Accusations Fly as Gas Fails to Flow

date: 14 January 2009

By Anatoly Medetsky / Staff Writer

Russian gas deliveries to the European Union failed to resume flowing through Ukraine as planned Tuesday, causing a flurry of accusations and Gazprom going so far as to accuse the United States of involvement in the disruption.





Gazprom said it began pumping gas toward Ukraine in the morning but that the country's transit system would not accept the fuel. Ukraine said it was unable to handle the gas on that particular route, calling Gazprom's choice of the entry point a provocation.





The EU in turn complained that its monitors -- intended to improve the transparency of gas deliveries -- were not allowed to access technical information both in Kiev and Moscow.It was unclear late Tuesday when gas supplies might resume to Europe.





"It's quite clear at this hour that Ukraine has blocked all our actions in respect to a renewal of the transit of natural gas to Europe, which is unbelievable," Gazprom deputy chief Alexander Medvedev said at 2 p.m. "I can't find any other words."





He suggested that Ukrainian officials, in their handling of the gas conflict, were taking orders from the United States.





"It looks like they are dancing [to] music that is not orchestrated in Ukraine," he said in a conference call with reporters, speaking in English.





"I am making a reference to the agreement which was signed by Ukraine and the United States on Dec. 19th.





"We don't have all the details of it ... but we do know that part of this agreement referred to the transit ... through Ukraine to Europe, which is especially suspicious," he said. "Now we could make some guess why Ukraine behaved in such an unreasonable way and continues to do so."





The agreement in question, titled "U.S.-Ukraine Charter on Strategic Partnership," mentions gas only once when it states that the parties "intend to work closely together on rehabilitating and modernizing the capacity of Ukraine's gas transit infrastructure," according to its copy posted on the U.S. State Department's web site.





The U.S. Embassy in Moscow issued a statement later Tuesday, saying Washington urged a rapid settlement of the dispute along normal commercial lines.





"We have encouraged all parties including Ukraine to work with the Czech EU presidency and with Russia to reach a prompt settlement," the statement said. "We hope Russia will do its part to end this dispute, resume and maintain gas supplies and avoid similar crises in the future."





U.S. State Department spokespeople were not immediately available for comment in Washington.

(Comment by Michael Baehr) This seems to be an annual event, like the flooding of the Snohomish River in the Fall. It also appears to be a bigger diplomatic play with the European Union and the United States over the Ukraine joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

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