Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Russia

Putin, Yushchenko Discuss Gas Deliveries

Moscow wants to hike gas prices (epa)

7 December 2005 (RFE/RL) -- The presidents of Russia and Ukraine today discussed an ongoing gas dispute between their respective countries over the phone.

TEXT SIZE - +

December 07, 2005

The offices of both presidents issued separate statements today saying Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko agreed to continue talks at the level of the relevant ministries.

The Russian statement says Yushchenko tentatively agreed that Russia should liberalize the price of its natural-gas supplies to Ukraine.

Russia is contemplating charging most CIS countries near-European prices for its deliveries as of next year.

Moscow wants to hike the price it is charging Kyiv to $160 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas from the current $50. In return, it says it is ready to pay the full market transit price for the gas it ships to western Europe through Ukraine.

Kyiv has been resisting the change.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin covers his face during a conference of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs in Moscow on February 9.

Administrative (Resource) Breakdown

Administrative resources make up the glue that holds authoritarian structures like Putin's power vertical together. And there have been plenty of signs recently that this glue is weakening. More

Syrians in the northwestern town of Kfar Nubul pose with a cartoon depicting Russia

Angry Over Syria, Arab World Threatens Russian Boycott

Groups in a number of Arab states, angry over the Russian-Chinese veto of a UN resolution aimed at stopping the violence in Syria, have called for a one-day boycott of Russian and Chinese goods on February 12. More

Alla Dzhioyeva attends a protest by her supporters in Tskhinvali on January 28.

South Ossetian Opposition Leader Hospitalized After Raid

Alla Dzhioyeva, the opposition candidate whose victory in a runoff ballot in November for de facto president of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia was swiftly annulled by the republic's Supreme Court, was taken to a hospital after a raid by some 200 masked security personnel on her headquarters in Tskhinvali. More