KREMLIN USES ENERGY TO TEACH EX-SOVIET NEIGHBORS A LESSON

Russia appears increasingly ready to use its status as a leading energy producer as an instrument of its muscular policy in the post-Soviet lands. Neighboring countries that do not have “special relations” with Moscow and that demonstrate pro-Western leanings are facing a steep rise in gas prices as of January 2006.

…Some key Russian policymakers have made it absolutely clear that the gas monopoly’s Kremlin supervisors are being guided by more than an economic rationale. They bluntly say that Moscow will continue to subsidize energy supplies to its “allies.” At the same time, it will promote “purely market mechanisms” in bilateral relations with those neighbors that are not sufficiently loyal and that display a “suspicious” geopolitical orientation. “We simply suggest applying market principles while doing business with those countries with which we don’t have an alliance-type relationship,” argues Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee.

Eurasia Daily Monitor