Russia shut off natural gas deliveries to Ukraine Jan. 1 over a price dispute, said Yuri Zarakhovich in Time. That’s bad news for Europe, which gets a fifth of its gas through Ukraine. So as Russian gas monopoly Gazprom and Ukraine “blow hot air,” millions in Europe “may soon feel winter’s chill.”
Europe has “bulked up” its gas reserves, but that will buy only a few days, said Canada’s The Globe and Mail in an editorial. For now, the EU needs to “ditch its usual caution” and try to mediate a multi-year, stable deal between Russia and Ukraine. But in the longer term, the West must “stop tolerating the Kremlin’s role as a direct player in the energy business”—a role it’s now using to “push Ukraine around.”
In this dispute, “determining who is right and wrong is a futile process,” said James Marson in Britain’s The Guardian. Yes, Russia is mingling commerce and geopolitics—punishing U.S. ally Ukraine for backing Georgia—but “the opacity and corruption of business in Ukraine” is part of the problem, too. Ukraine should deal with its own problems instead of relying on the increasingly tired “Kremlin ‘evil empire’ card.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Russia and Ukraine won’t turn into “friendly neighbors any time soon,” but this is primarily a “market dispute,” said Steve LeVine in BusinessWeek online. Gazprom is betting that oil will rise to $60 a barrel, which translates to $350 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas. Ukraine thinks oil will trade around $40, which means $235 for gas. The “dispute has more bite” this year because both parties are in an “economic fix” as the global economy sinks.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.
-
All about Zealandia, the Earth’s potential 8th continentThe Explainer The secret continent went undiscovered for over 300 years
-
A reckoning over looted art
The Explainer Thousands of artifacts in U.S. and European collections were stolen from their countries of origin. Should they be sent back?
-
A surge in surge pricing
Feature And more of the week's best financial insight
