Ukraine: Caging the bear

06 January 2005

Gazprom may have woven its network of companies and pipelines in an intricate web around East Europe, successfully consolidating its strategic advantage as far as oil and gas is concerned. But all strategies attract their counters and the West evidently has been hard at work trying to wriggle out of Gazprom's bear hug.

The 'great game', the old imperial game played out between the British colonial empire and the Tsarist Russian empire, still continues to be played out. Great Britain, the spent out colonial power, passed on the imperial baton to the US long ago and for Washington it is now a question of completing some unfinished business — the collapse of the Soviet Union being just the first, albeit, a major achievement. In conjunction with the fall of the Soviet edifice, the West for long has initiated a series of actions all along the rim of the old Tsarist Russia / Soviet Republics leaving the bear a harried animal today.

The undermining of the Russia's influence all round its rim, and beyond, has been a steady and successful march for the West. The first Iraq war in 1991 subverted its influence in the Middle East. The intervention in the Balkans, and the ouster of Milosevic followed in 1999. Post 9/11, in 2001, the US established military bases for the first time in the former Soviet republics and since then, the states of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan have all allied themselves to the US. Georgia too has seen the emergence of a regime, which is clearly pro-West. In Europe most members of the erstwhile Warsaw Pact, including the Baltic States, have now joined NATO and are with the European Union. So, where does Ukraine figure in these calculations?

Along with Yukos, making headlines simultaneously, were the presidential elections in Ukraine. Everything from dioxin scarring opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko's handsome face, to street demonstrations, reminiscent of Boris Yeltsin's rise to power in mother Russia itself, was on offer. The stakes obviously were very high — but not just for the Ukrainians, as a cursory look at some details may reveal.

If pipelines are what have ensured Russian state control over its oil and gas fortunes, then Ukraine is the chokepoint that threatens its stranglehold over supplies to Europe. For Russia, Ukraine is the most important transit country for its oil and gas exports — 80 per cent of all Russian gas and oil exports to Europe flow through Ukrainian pipelines. Incidentally, the main base of the Russian naval fleet in the Black Sea, Sebastopol, is also situated in Ukraine.

The US and the European Union have long tried to establish an oil transport route from the Caspian region, which would bypass both Russia and the bottleneck represented by the Bosphorus straits. Kellogg, a subsidiary of Dick Cheney's old company Halliburton, finally built a pipeline, extending from Odessa on the Black Sea to Brody on the Polish border. Caspian oil could now be pumped through Georgia to the Black Sea, and after a short transit by sea, directly to Polish refineries and onwards to European markets – bypassing Gazprom's network altogether.

The pipeline was completed in May 2002, and has since then stood empty! Russia effectively neutralised its operation – courtesy a friendly Ukrainian called Victor Yanukovych. Yanukovych being the same gentleman ousted in the electoral fracas in Ukraine by the pro-west candidate Victor Yushchenko. Though dioxin may have taken some of the charm off his face, with Yushchenko coming up trumps over Yanukovych in Ukraine's elections in December 2004, the West has found reasons to smile. Another bastion on the rim of the Tsarist / Russian / Soviet empire had been toppled.

A delighted Europe, along with the USA, has been jubilant — the EU's Dutch presidency said, "The European Union is looking forward to a new phase in Ukraine's development." In Washington, US Secretary of State Colin Powell hailed the "full, free and fair" election, while British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has called it "an important step forward for democracy" in the country.

If Khodorovsky, of Yukos fame, lamented that with the acquisition of Yukos, the Russians had given themselves an early Christmas present, then the West has clearly given itself an equally handsome New Years' present. Ukraine may turn out to be even a bigger prize for the West than Yukos may turn out to be for Russia. The smile that appeared on the face of the bear around Christmas must have disappeared as the year came to a close!

Seven years earlier in 1977, Zbigniew Brzezinski, former US security advisor, in his book, The Grand Chessboard, had argued that America's capacity to exercise global primacy depended on its ability to prevent “the emergence of a dominant and antagonistic Eurasian power.“

Speaking of Russia, Brzezinski wrote, “Even without the Baltic states and Poland, a Russia that retained control over Ukraine could still seek to be the leader of an assertive Eurasian empire.... But without Ukraine and its fifty two million fellow Slavs, any attempt by Moscow to rebuild the Eurasian empire was likely to leave Russia entangled alone in protracted conflicts with the nationally and religiously aroused non-Slavs, the war with Chechnya perhaps simply being the first example.“

This should be a cue to look at other moves that have already been played out, or are in the process of being played out, elsewhere in the bear's territory. Chechnya is where the mullahs of the Mid-east are snapping at its' tail. Like Ukraine, Chechnya too sits at the crossroads – not just of old caravan routes, but modern ones – of oil and gas pipelines.