When the internet news shows the pipeline of Russian oil going through Belarus to the rest of their European customers, the Baltics are among those customers.
Now that Russia has cut off that supply of oil as a retaliation to Belarus, are our relatives and friends in Latvia and the other Baltics going to go without heat this winter or do they have other suppliers?

Quite the opposite, probably—in sudden hatred towards its insane little brother, Belarus, Russia is again looking at the Baltics for transit. The truba shall rise again?!

Latvia faces a massive increase in gas costs, which was expected. Russia has every right to raise prices to world levels, don’t you think? We’re not exactly their darlings.

Latvia is in a very good position on this score—Inčukalns is one of the largest gas storage facilities in the world.

So far, so good, or—so it is? Here in Daugavpils, the city just announced that there will be no rebates for the strangely warm winter.

Latvia has/had the potential of becoming a major transit country in this regard. That won’t happen, it seems. But I think a defense of Belarus is not in the offing, Ārija—a charming dictator who loves Russia so long as Russia fuels his economic miracle with dirt cheap energy isn’t free market thinking, is it?

Vysu lobu,
/P

The Krauts are reconsidering nukes and
the Frggies are giggling, but there are
ather things under the pipeline fiasko….

  Tuesday, Jan. 09, 2007
Why Moscow Hates Minsk
By Yuri Zarakhovich/Moscow
Russian President Vladimir Putin threw a major fit on state television Monday night. In a vituperative appearance, he accused the neighboring nation of Belarus of ungratefulness and intransigence in the ugly quarrel over energy prices and pipelines. He said that Russia had virtually subsidized the neo-Stalinist regime of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko over the past five years. Now the Belarussians’ illegal tapping of tens of thousands of tons of oil had forced Moscow to shut down the pipeline that runs through Belarus — inconveniencing not just Russian oil companies but their energy hungry customers farther to the west, including Germany and Poland. [German Chancellor Angela Merkel today criticized both Moscow and Minsk for what she called “unacceptable” behavior. Germany gets a fifth of its oil imports through the so called Friendship pipeline in question.]

Over New Year’s, Russia forced Belarus to pay a whopping increase in gas prices; Belarus retaliated by stealing oil from the pipeline. But Putin’s bile may have origins other than the current quarrel over the price of energy. In the 1990s, Lukashenko, although the president of another country, was immensely popular in Russia because he loudly advocated the re-integration of Belarus with Russia — so much so that some analysts believed he was maneuvering for the top position at the Kremlin itself. At that time, Lukashenko cut a much more attractive figure than then Russian President Boris Yeltsin. But the rise of Vladimir Putin ended Lukashenko’s advance. However, even today, some polls put Lukashenko’s approval among Russians at 25%, way above the numbers generated by the putative political heirs of Putin himself.

Lukashenko has since dragged his feet at re-federation and Belarus now fears that the Russians will simply go ahead and find a way to end its independence. That fear may itself be fueled by Russian paranoia about national security, which is never far from the surface. While recent threats to the Russian state have come from Islamist radicals, Moscow’s military elite still harbors apprehensions about NATO. An attack by the Western alliance and the U.S. always plays a part in defense planning. And how is Belarus involved in Russia’s fear of NATO? For about 10 years, in order to monitor the West, the Russians have maintained an electronic warning station in Baranovichi, Belarus, staffed with an estimated 1,200 Russian military personnel. A critical nuclear submarine control and communication facility for the Russian navy is also located in Belarus. Hence, a pliant Belarus would make Putin’s generals happier. An openly hostile regime in Minsk would not.

As he presides over a moribund economy, Lukashenko has taken to guerrilla tactics to survive, brazenly ordering his officials to take Russian oil from the pipeline. He knows that Belarus alone cannot stand up to the Russian behemoth, much less pay for energy prices Moscow has imposed on it. However, Lukashenko is betting that when countries like Poland and Germany feel his pain, Moscow will begin to feel the heat.

Copyright © 2007 Time Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.Privacy Policy|Add TIME Headlines to your Site|Contact Us|Customer Service

Thanks to you both for your input and article. A good friend also advised that the Baltics are on a different pipeline from the one that is supplying Belarus and Europe and that they have a couple of months on reserve. I am glad our friends and relatives won’t have to go without.
As for the price of gas, I agree that current market price should apply to all customers but Putin was giving Belarus a special deal. What ticked him off was that Belarus was not just using the gas for their own consumption but stealing more and re-selling it for a profit. Putin’s shut-off “game” just harks back to old communist maneuvers.  Stalin used food as a weapon to destroy any opposition and now Putin is using gas as a political tool to get what he wants.

Arija~
The crude oil pipe to Venspils has
been dry since 2004. Tha hasn’t made
real big news. Of course, the oil
travels by rail now.

I.G. sent me an interesting article.
I don’t think that europeans have it
in them to give the boot to ruskis….

Get tough with Gazprom
Robert R. Amsterdam

Tuesday, January 9, 2007
LONDON
European energy security

By Robert R. Amsterdam

The European Commission’s Strategic Energy Review, which will be issued on Wednesday, is likely to be the most important statement on energy in the EC’s history. To succeed, one of its top priorities must be equal terms of business between the European Union and Russia.

As shown once again this week, when Russia halted delivery of oil to Europe via Belarus, the current situation is dangerously unbalanced.

The Commission must facilitate further integration of Russia’s state-owned Gazprom into the EU market through market liberalization and downstream integration. In parallel, it must seek the eventual restructuring of Gazprom, and access to Russian markets for European companies.

Gazprom has evolved into the dominant market maker in gas for Europe. But its actions have made a mockery of EU efforts toward greater collaboration with Russia.

Gazprom deploys three strategies: cooptation — cultivating partnerships with certain countries, political leaders and corporations as levers of its interests; pre-emption — using upstream power and Russian diplomacy to manipulate situations downstream and to scoop up assets, and disaggregation — splitting the EU through bilateral deals.

Gazprom’s cooptation of Europe has been achieved mainly through Germany. Partnerships with German energy companies and banks have helped persuade Berlin to collaborate in favor of Gazprom and Russian aims.

Meanwhile, extensive lobbying directly and by proxy is used to persuade European regulators to allow long-term supply contracts in the EU despite their deadening effect on competition.

Pre-emption by Gazprom has been accomplished through a sweep of acquisitions at any economic or political cost. Gazprom has flooded the market in Turkey, withheld gas from Ukraine and oil from Belarus, and offered preferential market access to willing partners like Italy.

Elsewhere, Gazprom engages in pre-emption — like the Caucasus, where the Kremlin has done everything possible to prevent Iran from establishing the infrastructure to allow it to compete as a supplier of gas to Europe. To stop Iran’s gas Russia effectively bought the entire energy sector of Armenia.

Gazprom’s opacity and market dominance are reinforced by activities coordinated with the Kremlin to impact markets like Spain and Italy by seeking gas deals with rival suppliers, like Algeria. In exchange Russia has offered enticing gifts, such as vast concessions on arms and preferential debt terms.

In other cases, the Kremlin acts punitively, as it did when it cut off oil to Lithuania over its sale of a refinery to a Polish company.

The prime example of disaggregation is the Nord Stream pipeline, which appeals to Germany’s interests while angering Warsaw and the three Baltic countries. The undersea pipeline, which connects Russia directly with Germany, serves the political objectives of the Kremlin, undermines the energy security of Germany’s eastern neighbors and threatens environmental havoc in the Baltic Sea.

The Commission’s Strategic Energy Review must deal with the asymmetry of the EU-Russia energy relationship, which allows Gazprom to use the EU’s deficient liberalization policies against European interests.

As long as Gazprom remains opaque, Europe will never know whether its key supplier is spending enough to develop reserves crucial to Europe’s future. Indeed, one result of the Kremlin’s political battle to win control of Russia’s energy sector has been a dramatic reduction in the rate of growth of domestic oil and gas production. That is a problem for Europe.

Brussels must demand transparency, symmetry and the rule of law from Moscow, with the ultimate goal of a revolutionary integration of European and Russian energy markets.

The access Gazprom seeks in Europe is the Commission’s trump card. Europe should let Gazprom know that this access is conditional on a reciprocal openness of Russia’s energy sector.

The result could be a welcome place in the European energy market for a Russia that is trusted and respected by its international partners.

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Labrīt!

A couple of links on Latvia and gas—

http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/16884/

http://www.delfi.lv/news/national/politics/article.php?id=16552339

Ārija,

It’s not exactly Putin who was giving Belarus a special deal—the special deals preceded him (we paid far below market price, also). Even now, the price Belarus will be paying is far below the market price.

The Black Monk at soc.culture.baltics posted a very interesting comparison of Ukraine to Belarus and Georgia—

http://www.kyivpost.com/top/25820/

RFE/RL offers an excellent archive of articles on Russia and energy—

http://www.rferl.org/specials/caspian/

Whilst I agree that Russia’s use of energy as a political tool is unpleasant—_all_ major powers play such games with resources. If you compare Putin to Stalin, what do you compare the gentlemen in power in Washington to?

The western response to the rise of Russia as a non-democratic energy superpower is a mixture of indignation, fear and double-standard politics. The visit in May of the United States vice-president #### Cheney in Lithuania is a disturbing illustration of this new reality. Cheney went to Vilnius where he ferociously attacked Russia’s democratic record; the next day he flew to Kazakhstan and praised Nursultan Nazarbayev for stabilising his country.

If the American vice-president reads the democracy ranking in the Nations in Transit 2006 survey he will learn that in Kazakhstan there is even less freedom than in Russia. But what senior members of the American administration are reading these days is not reports of human-rights organisations but reports on the US’s energy-resource balance. The result is a policy that is at the same time morally appalling and strategically wrong. So, the “second law of petropolitics” (pace Thomas Friedman) is that the price of oil and the will of democratic governments to promote democracy in energy-rich states always move in opposite directions.

http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article.jsp?id=6&debateId=28&articleId=3637

Regards,
/P

P.S. Your Vice President’s given name is not my comment on his nature…

What happened to my post?
I just wrote a respose to Peter C. and clicked to Preview and instead of previewing it, it disappeared and asked me to sign in again.
Did I think too long?  Is there a time limit to a
post?

That happens from time to time. Best advice is to hit the back button until you get back to the original post screen. Copy the post and then follow through all of the different prompts until you can post a response, which will be blank of course, paste your original post in there, and live happily ever after.
I wish they’d fix this bug. I lost many a post this way.

Andrejs

Doubtless #### got to it, Ārija!

Another option—what I do lately is open another window (tab, actually—I use Mozilla) and make sure I am still signed in before trying to post.

Vysu lobu,
/P

{updated}

Thanks for the suggestions.  Backspacing it sounds the simplest until you got to the cut and paste etc.  I know how to cut and paste, so if it ever happens again, I will try it, but beyond cutting…..well my talents end with cut and paste.  The other alternative (Milligan or Magellan) - Peter if I sign out of this and go back to your post to find the correct word, I’ll lose this too. I will just have to play with that one and see if it works.
Anyway, what I tried to say to you was that your links were great. I liked the article about Ukraine using coal. I am leery of that pipeline under the Baltic from Russia to Germany, especially when they are by-passing Latvia.
As for my comparing Putin to Stalin and who I would compare to Bush, well, you guys have often brought up Hitler and the Holocaust when writing stuff on Bush and the war in Iraq.  I don’t think
my comparison of Putin to Stalin was any more far
fetched and unrealistic than Bush to Hitler. At least Bush doesn’t poison his opponents.
Thanks for those articles. I really did find them very interesting. I even went off and watched the video on the travel the Latvian delegates are doing. Sounds like such fun.

Glad you liked the links, Ārija—but no “you guys” here; in fact, I strongly objected to the Bush/Hitler comparisons someone made. Not that I’m a fan of Dubya, to put it mildly…

Vysu lobu,
/P