Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Gas Blockade: Economic Warfare

On his blog Bildt Comments, Carl Bildt observes that Turkmenistan is being used by Moscow as a weapon in the gas blockade of Ukraine:

Ukraine actually imports more gas from Turkmenistan than from Russia, although all of that comes through the pipelines running through Russia.

What seems certain is that Russia has refused to transit increased amounts that have been contracted by Ukraine. But in addition there are indications that they are trying to cut the Turkmen supply in much bigger ways.

If that is the case, then there is no question that we are seeing a classical case of economic warfare. Then all talk about a business dispute disappears very fast indeed.

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