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Cost of concessions

The economic cooperation committee of the Ukrainian-Russian Intergovernmental Commission is to have a session this Thursday in Yalta, presided over by the Ukrainian and Russian prime ministers. The main point on the agenda will be Russia’s gas supplies to Ukraine in 2010. According to Yulia Tymoshenko, “we will once again raise the matter of optimizing natural gas prices for Ukraine, and all our relationships.” Regrettably, these assurances do not sound too convincing.

Tymoshenko is her usual aggressive self — not with regard to the other contracting party but her inner opponents: “I think that there are many political provocations in the natural gas sphere. All these loud declarations about the bad situation with natural gas supplies are caused by the shadow intermediaries that operated between Russia and Ukraine, who want their good old business back. That is why there is such sharp criticism of everything that has to do with natural gas supplies… I am fully aware that all these corrupt mechanisms in the system of gas supplies to Ukraine are livid and want to compromise everything we’re doing in Ukraine. Let me tell you that there is a clear-cut agreement with the prime minister of Russia to the effect that, proceeding from the results of this year — let me stress, after the end of this year — we will sign a document that will provide natural gas supplies to Ukraine. It will reflect the amount of gas we have received and there will be no penalties. We have this clearly formulated agreement with the prime minister of Russia and he has never let me down after reaching an agreement. I’m also trying to keep my promises…” Tymoshenko stressed that she is perfectly satisfied with the currently effective gas accords: “Belarus is the only country that pays less for natural gas than Ukraine, simply because it shares the gas transportation system with the Russian Federation. All the rest — even Moldova that handed 50 percent of its GTS over to Russia — have to pay more on the year’s average than Ukraine.”

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