Translated material
Victims Summit
Moscow is trying to mobilize Europe to increase pressure on Ukraine
The war of nerves and mutual accusations between Russia and Ukraine continues. Yesterday did not bring any changes to the situation with the transit of Russian gas to Europe through Ukrainian territory. Moreover, the prospect of restoring transit remains vague. In this situation, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev took the initiative to hold a special summit of heads of state and government of countries that receive or transit gas in Moscow on January 17. Some of them were already in Moscow yesterday.At the invitation of Vladimir Putin, the Prime Ministers of Slovakia Robert Fico, Bulgaria Sergei Stanishev and Moldova Zinaida Grechany gathered at his Novo-Ogarevo residence ( see page 2 ). Prior to this, high-ranking guests visited the Central Production and Dispatch Department of Gazprom, where they were able to verify online that the valve for supplying gas to their countries was open in Russia and closed at the entrance to the system in Ukraine. And then Dmitry Medvedev accepted them.
“I hope that the meeting, which will be held in Moscow, will allow us to find a way out of the current situation and will allow us to avoid such situations in the future,” the president said, saying that he expressed this idea in a telephone conversation with the President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso. According to Interfax, the Czech Presidency of the European Union is “studying” President Dmitry Medvedev’s proposal for a summit meeting on the problem of gas supplies to Europe. And the representative of the European Commission, Johannes Leitenberger, having confirmed the fact that Mr. Barroso had received an oral proposal from Moscow, noted: “It is necessary to clarify the details of the possible format of this meeting.” The press secretary of the Russian president, Natalya Timakova, answered in the affirmative when asked by Vremya Novostey whether the Kremlin intends to invite Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to the event.
However, the likelihood of a positive response from Kyiv is extremely low. Firstly, the political crisis continues there, with mutual accusations between the president and the prime minister of disrupting the gas agreements. Secondly, they understand that this will be another round of public “execution” for problems with transit. Therefore, towards the evening, the press service of the Ukrainian leader reported that he considered it inappropriate to hold a gas summit in Moscow, on the territory of one of the countries participating in the conflict. “The President considers the most appropriate venue for this kind of summit to be one of the European capitals - for example, Prague as the capital of the country that holds the EU presidency, or Brussels as the place where the headquarters of the European Commission is located,” the press release said.
“I think, at a minimum, we could consider two issues,” said Dmitry Medvedev, justifying the idea of convening a summit at the highest level. First, it will be about “how to end conflict.” Secondly, it will be necessary to consider how to prevent similar situations in the future. “We should not become hostages to situations developing in other states,” the Russian president emphasized. He recalled that yesterday the chairman of the Ukrainian government accused the president of this country that it was his fault that the supply agreements were disrupted. Mr. Medvedev believes that this is an internal matter for Ukraine, but it, “as a state striving for unity and full-fledged relations with the EU, must realize its responsibility.”
The goal of the Russian authorities is becoming increasingly clear. First, achieve the actual involvement of the European Union as an observer for the cleanliness of transit through Ukraine (and this was done after the signing of a trilateral protocol on monitoring), then, right in front of the European representatives, demonstrate that Naftogaz does not provide transit (yesterday and the day before yesterday, observers and even top officials European countries had the opportunity to clearly see this, which was documented). And now it is necessary for Brussels to finally recognize Kyiv as guilty of the situation and make every effort to force Ukraine to cooperate. Deputy Prime Minister for the Fuel and Energy Complex Igor Sechin spoke even more clearly on this topic: “We are grateful to the level of cooperation that has been achieved with the European Union, with the European Commission and with individual countries. But I think we have only one way out - to consolidate our efforts, take a common position and separate two problems - supplies of gas for internal use by Ukraine and transit.”
Brussels faces a difficult choice: accept Moscow's offer and put increased pressure on Ukraine, or refuse, leaving its Eastern European members without political support. Moreover, the European Commission, with tenacity worthy of other uses, does not want to blame Kyiv for blocking supplies.
Until now, most European politicians and officials have publicly maintained “armed neutrality,” calling on both sides to stop freezing Eastern European countries. This in itself was a great informational success for Moscow compared to the situation in 2006, when all sympathies were on the side of Kyiv. And gradually the attitude towards the causes of the conflict continues to change. For example, in Slovakia they were extremely outraged by the reception given to Prime Minister Robert Fico in Kyiv, where he stopped on his way to Moscow (the delegation waited an hour for an audience with Yulia Tymoshenko). “We are not interested in your disputes, we need gas,” he told his Ukrainian counterpart. But he was not heard. Previously, Ukraine’s actions were publicly condemned by the heads of government of Serbia, Italy and Romania. As gas reserves deplete and the situation with compensation for gas supplies from other sources worsens, concern over Kyiv's actions will obviously grow. Slovakia, according to official statements, will run out of gas in 14 days, Bosnia and Herzegovina only has enough resources until Friday, Greece has solved the problem by purchasing liquefied natural gas by the end of this month. Bulgaria, through gas storage, can supply consumers for more than two months, but only in a very limited manner (no more than 30% of the usual level). The most difficult situation is in the southern regions of Moldova and Transnistria, where there are simply no alternative sources of supply. Finally, Ukraine itself has big problems with gas supply; a significant part of industrial consumers are now not provided with gas at all; thermal power plants have been converted to fuel oil and coal to the maximum.
On the night of January 14, Gazprom, as a day earlier, submitted an application to transport through the Sudzha measuring station 13.9 million cubic meters for consumers in Moldova, 62.7 million cubic meters to the Balkans and Turkey, as well as 22.2 million cubic meters to consumers Slovakia. Naftogaz responded that it did not have the technical ability to pump these volumes and did not allow gas into the system. Bratislava’s proposal for gas supplies to Slovakia on the basis of exchange operations between Gazprom and Naftogaz, supported in principle in Moscow, was also not formalized into specific agreements at the time the number was signed. Kyiv did not confirm its readiness to carry out such a transaction. Naftogaz sent Gazprom a draft agreement “On measures to ensure transit.” The document obliges the Russian company to transfer gas to the transit country for technological needs in the amount of 21 million cubic meters per day (or 1.56 billion cubic meters for the duration of the agreement). The second clause stipulates that the parties undertake to sign a contract for the purchase and sale of these volumes as soon as possible, within the framework of which the issues of gas taken by the Ukrainian company from the pipeline on January 1-6 should be resolved. Gazprom did not publicly comment on this proposal. But, according to Vremya Novostei, they responded with a written refusal. Ukraine must provide fuel gas from its own resources or buy and pay for it.