Information results of the week, December 23-29

** Russian Shlyakh Ukraine **

Last week, central media actively commented on the results of the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Ukraine. According to newspapers, no fateful decisions or unexpected agreements at the meeting of V. Putin and Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko were not reached, but the tonality of negotiations was very friendly. The parties seemed to compete among themselves in friendliness and the desire to show everyone that the relations of the two largest Slavic countries are on the rise. This is especially impressive, given the very painful history of the relationship between the Kremlin and Yushchenko, the leader of the anti -Russian “Orange Revolution” 2004, the problems of supplying Russian energy carriers to Ukraine and gas transit to Europe no longer cause disputes, and the agreement of January 2006 is strictly observed by both parties. An important topic of the visit, the specifics of which remained unknown to journalists was the situation with Turkmen gas: the sudden death of the lifelong president of this country Niyazov (the so -called Turkmenbashi) raised doubts about the reliability of gas supplies from this country, and Russia, apparently, promised Ukraine in case of interruptions to compensate for the shortage of its own raw materials. According to the press, the fact that Yushchenko refused to fly to Niyazov’s funeral after meeting with Putin, limiting himself to the prime minister Ashgabat’s business trip to the Ashgabat, speaks precisely about Russian guarantees of the uninterrupted supplies of “blue fuel”. True, other problems of bilateral relations - the borders in the Azovo -Kirchic Strait, the position of the Black Sea Fleet - could not be decided, and the new meeting was outlined for February next year.

According to a number of publications, Putin needed more than Yushchenko: against the backdrop of an exacerbation of relations with Europe and other foreign policy troubles of Russia, it is necessary to show its tolerance in relation to Ukraine. But for Yushchenko, strengthening relations with Russia, and far from only in the oil and gas sphere, is extremely important: a swift throw to Europe, conceived by the "Heroes of the Maidan", turned out to be a run anywhere. Recently, the leadership of the European Union officially announced that the expansion of Europe at the expense of the reception of new members is postponed for at least several years, and Brussels are ready to negotiate only with Turkey, and even then, most likely, in order to finally prove it to the futility of attempts to squeeze into the European “doors”. This means that Ukraine has nothing to worry about: Western countries that have done everything to tear it from Russia are not going to accept it, since the reconstruction of the Ukrainian economy and the social sphere will require hundreds of billion euros. Even rich Europe does not have such money, and after all, after January 1, 2007, she has yet to equip Romania and Bulgaria ...

It turns out that, no matter how "orange" leaders to Russia relate, they will have to build relations with our country seriously and for a long time. The fundamental Yulia Tymoshenko, who, as promised, began to torpedo Russian-Ukrainian relations, as soon as she became the prime minister of Ukraine, was forced to leave her post: the Ukrainian economy immediately cracked at all seams. And Yanukovych, who is hated by the “Maidan”, replacing it in the premiere chair, in a short time he succeeded: having removed “blood clots” in relations with Russia, depolitizing them, significantly increasing the turnover and cooperation of the enterprises of the two countries, the Ukrainian economy for the first time in many years began to demonstrate sustainable growth.

It seems that the most acute periods in the relations of Russia and Ukraine are a thing of the past. And this cannot but rejoice - both from a purely human point of view (after all the closest neighbor) and from the economic one: despite the 15 years of “free swimming” the economy of the two countries remain interconnected, and cooperation is beneficial to both sides.

** This is not for you to rub gas through the pipes! **

It is true that the most cruel quarrels occur between the closest people. The closest countries - Russia and Belarus, constituting even a single union state - due to gas prices, such a degree of cruelty and accompanied by such an explosion of mutual hatred came into conflict that the memories of the recent quarrels of Moscow with Kiev and Tbilisi immediately faded.

The reasons for the gas war of Russia and Belarus are well known: the principle that Russia has passed to in recent years is to transition from "fraternal" relations to commercial. Russia wanted to raise gas prices from the current $ 46 to $ 105 per thousand cubic meters, which, by the way, is still lower than the prices that Ukraine and Georgia pay. And Belarus insists on maintaining precisely "fraternal" connections, the main thing in which is the preservation of domestic -Russian gas prices, supplied to the Belarusian market. New Year's negotiations between Russia and Belarus led to a real Cold War between the two countries: both sides said that they would not go to concessions.

The offended Russian leadership threatened that he would stop supplying gas to Belarus from January 1, 2007, but Minsk was ready for such a turn of events and, in turn, announced his readiness to block transit gas supply to Europe. As a result, not to mention the notorious reputation of Gazprom, the promises of President Putin to Europeans about the reliability of Russia as a supplier of “blue fuel” were under the promises of President Putin. It is not surprising that against the background of ongoing conflicts around the transit of Russian gas - either with Ukraine, then with Poland, and now with Belarus - in the Western press there are reports of one after another about the conclusion of contracts for gas supply between Spain and Algeria, then the construction of a new gas pipeline branch from the same Algeria to Italy. In other words, the search for alternative gas suppliers of gas entered the active phase.

Now remembering the notorious "energy greatness" of Russia is even somehow indecent. Perhaps now the creators of foreign policy and the foreign economic strategy of our country will begin to understand that the supplier of energy carriers is not able to dictate the conditions of consumer countries. Otherwise, the great powers would not be the United States, France and Great Britain, but Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela. The positions of Russia as a supplier of energy resources are also complicated by the fact that deliveries are not carried out by sea route, but through the system of pipelines, and even also passing through unfriendly countries. That is, our country depends not only on consumers of hydrocarbon raw materials, but also on the transit countries that act, in apt comparison of one of the TV presenters, in the role of a sort of modern Khazar Kaganate, who lived to be charging tribute from the caravans passing and sailing around its territory.

You should not be offended by Belarus: this country is simply trying to benefit from its geographical position. In the end, all countries throughout the world do this: after all, they are not offended by Panama and Egypt for the fact that in their territories there are transocean channels - they simply pay them, and that’s all. Russia should understand that gas and oil will not turn it into a great power - only the stubborn work of its citizens, head and hands can do it.

** Necrosoopedophile non -zero **

One of the most high -profile events of the New Year’s week is the announcement of the Prosecutor General of the co -owner of Group Menatep Leonid Nonznin suspected of the poisoning of the ex -lift of the FSB Alexander Litvinenko. At one time, the former chief of investment department of the Bank of Menatep Dmitry Golubovich, who was gaining in London, claimed that his family and his family members tried to poison with mercury, leaving her in offices, at his house and in the car. According to Golubovich, Leonid Nevzlin could be involved in the attempt: at that time, the struggle for control over money and property abroad was undergoing between shareholders and top managers of Yukos. Then the case of the Yukosov residents was somehow furious, but now, obviously, the information has given an impetus for a new round of charges against Nevznin. However, it will not be possible to expose Golubovich as the plaintiff: this British citizen mysteriously disappeared some time ago. As, however, the other characters of the Litvinenko case are his former comrade-in-arms Kovtun, some unknown to the British and Russian investigators, who met with the late re-worker officer ...
I must say that no one expected such a turn of events: only the lazy, but no one of the murders did not suspect the former comrade -in -arms of Khodorkovsky as a probable poisoner of the former accomplice, but no one suspected.
As you know, at the end of November, Leonid Nevzlin in an interview with the British newspaper Times said that Alexander Litvinenko shortly before the poisoning handed him the materials “shed light on the most important aspects of the Yukos case”. And this is the dossier received from the former Ephesians, Nevzlin promised to transfer to investigators Scotland Yard. After that, a rumor appeared in the Israeli press that allegedly Russia was trying to exchange non -Zeralyts for three Israelis in Russian prisons. The transaction failed and, apparently, our General Pekuratus decided to go in the other way - discrediting non -Zapolin and presenting it to the world community as a murderer.
It is unlikely that anyone considers Mr. Nevzlin, as well as his colleagues Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, as a tear of the baby. A large business all over the world, and Russia's dashing 90s, in any case, is associated with all kinds of fraud, and there were enough corpses on the path of a number of companies. But the top management of Yukos, as the prosecutors, seems to be some kind of murderer’s gang, and Nevzlin, who, it turns out, only did that he poisoned people (especially for some reason employees of his own company)-this is just some kind of monster, a sort of necrozoopedophile. Honestly, it is at least very difficult to believe in all this.