JHSussex Wrote:> Anti-russian propaganda screams now that Russia . . .
I think this is the root of the problem. There's no such thing as 'anti-Russian' propaganda. People would much prefer to take no interest in Russia. Russia of course hates this above all things. And as for such an impassioned defence of Gazprom, I can't imagine wanting to passionately defend British Gas. The writer must be aware on some level that Gazprom is the arm of the Russian Federation's authoritarian regime.
Where did you find "impassioned defence of Gazprom" I wonder. I just told what is obvious enough.
First of all Gazprom is merchant. And as any merchant, it is interested in commerce above anything else. Gazprom sells gas to Georgia which pays on normal schedule. Why would it do so if it was "arm of authoritarian regime" like you said? It's well known that Putin hates Saakashvili. Gazprom also sells gas to Baltic states which are anything but nice towards Russia and Kremlin in their speeches and political moves (and also treat unfairly russian-speaking minority in their countries). If it was a "weapon" like you anglo-saxons say, why aren't there multi gas wars with all "problematic" (for russian government) Eastern Europe countries? Why the only big-scale and repeating crisis in gas sphere occurs with the only country
- which has extremely unstable (if only you don't call permanent chaos "stability") and impotent political establishment which can't solve its own differences ever since they came to power;
- whose president has like 4-6% approval rate, but still clings to his position, continuing to force unpopular among ukrainian people, but US-oriented (i.e. anti-russian) social, political and cultural decisions;
- whose prime-minister made her fortune on some obscure gas machinations even before "orange revolution";
- which nevertheless posseses key factor - main GTS to EU for russian natural gas.
Can you answer this simple question -Why- with reasonable arguments?
You know, when they started their "orange revolt" in 2004 I had discussions with some friends from Ukraine. Many of them were telling me that it's not a simple power-switching but great hope for free democratic and prosperous future. Many promises were given to them and they followed. "Okay", - I said to them, "Though I do not believe in what your orange leaders say and what they promise, though I am sure that it's all financed from abroad to bring their agent of inluence and has nothing to do with the good of ukrainians people, let's live on and see how it turns out, and I'll be very happy for you if I am mistaken and they build you civilized and respectable state."
Sadly, 4 years of tragicomedy "Political life of Ukraine" proved that I was right. And after watching their orange (and white-blue) leaders fighting, badmouthing, intriguing, betraying each other, while keeping the power divided only among their 3 "clans" - why should I beleive in their honesty and fairness in gas transit relations? Desperately provoking crisis by declining price many EU countries would be excited to get, stealing transit gas, blaming Gazprom, playing innocent victim before EU and so on - fits perfectly the imprudent style they used to have for their internal politics.
Still, people like you don't even let a thought about ukrainian responsibility for the troubles we all (except UK) are in. So does anti-russian propaganda (we can use politically correct definition, something like "contra-russian observations in media") exist in reality? I'm afraid so, since its results we see so often. Like this time when you westerns turn mostly economical fight
[bankrupt, corruted and fighting each other for politic domination ukranians blackmail russian state corporation which is kinda helpless before such violation of transit contract, but doesn't want to surrender like it did in 2006 because nowadays it has its own financial troubles due to world crisis] into another political drama
[of big bad russian bear tearing apart poor white fluffy ukrainian sheep to make from its hide a scarecrow for european herd which doesn't want to surrender to bears unholy might].
ukrainian Wrote:Gas it's only lever that help Russia reach target and to influence deeply on Ukraine and EU.
Well, this is certain falsehood. Russia has deepest influence on Ukraine not because "only gas" but due to untornable cultural and historical ties. After being single country for longer than USA exists, it's hard to stop all relations no matter how hard your president and his neo-nationalistic watchdogs try. By the way, didn't he ban russian tv in Ukraine not so long ago? What channels do you watch out there then? ^^
Ukrajinka Wrote:Gazprom is no good example of transparency, but even it looks good in comparison to RosUkrEnergo. It's a shady enterprise for sure! I mean, how many middlemen you need to keep the taps open? And you are right about 50/50 ownership.
In this gas crisis both countries lost. And now we look like it's a bunch of state-level mafia guys to the rest of the world. So the only way out of the situation is to present it like a political dispute between Russia and Ukraine.
I do not protect Gazprom, or make any example from it, it's hard to remain unstained in big commerce, especially in Russia. We have much to improve, and I hope we will do it little by little. But well, when our UK friend up there mindlessly repeats after his newspapers stuff about "Gazprom as arm of regime" not trying to get into the matter of the cause - that's so disappointing.
And the most unfortunate is that russian-european relations are threated again. As if there is really some hidden hand which systematically prevents us from cooperating and working together to improve life for all of us, europeans, ukrainians, russians...