I don’t believe that I can be alone in having spent a Russian or Ukrainian winter with the windows of my room wide open. Many buildings in that part of the world are dreadfully overheated, for the simple reason that energy is so cheap. Soon, however, Ukrainians will have to learn to close their windows. Until this week, the Russian gas company Gazprom charged Ukrainian consumers $50 for every 1,000 cubic metres of gas they used. On Sunday Gazprom demanded that they pay $230. The Ukrainians’ first response was to refuse, and the Russians turned off the gas. The choice, it seemed, was expensive fuel, or no fuel at all. On Wednesday, the Ukraine agreed to pay $95 per 1,000 cubic metres for a mixture of Gazprom supply and cheaper gas from Central Asia. Gazprom has, for the moment, said it is satisfied.
What’s going on? With the collapse of Soviet military and economic might, Russia was left with very few means with which to influence the world around it.
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