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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsOr is it about oil and gas, too? "Ukraine crisis is about Great Power oil, gas pipeline rivalry"
Last edited Thu Mar 6, 2014, 07:57 PM - Edit history (2)
But US efforts to turn the political tide in Ukraine away from Russian influence began much earlier. In 2004, the Bush administration had given $65 million to provide 'democracy training' to opposition leaders and political activists aligned with them, including paying to bring opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko to meet US leaders and help underwrite exit polls indicating he won disputed elections.
This programme has accelerated under Obama.....
So it would be naive to assume that this magnitude of US support to organizations politically aligned with the Ukrainian opposition played no role in fostering the pro-Euro-Atlantic movement that has ultimately culminated in Russian-backed President Yanukovych's departure.
............
But Russia's Gazprom, controlling almost a fifth of the world's gas reserves, supplies more than half of Ukraine's, and about 30% of Europe's gas annually. Just one month before Nuland's speech at the National Press Club, Ukraine signed a $10 billion shale gas deal with US energy giant Chevron "that the ex-Soviet nation hopes could end its energy dependence on Russia by 2020." The agreement would allow "Chevron to explore the Olesky deposit in western Ukraine that Kiev estimates can hold 2.98 trillion cubic meters of gas." Similar deals had been struck already with Shell and ExxonMobil.
The move coincided with Ukraine's efforts to "cement closer relations with the European Union at Russia's expense", through a prospective trade deal that would be a step closer to Ukraine's ambitions to achieve EU integration. But Yanukovych's decision to abandon the EU agreement in favour of Putin's sudden offer of a 30% cheaper gas bill and a $15 billion aid package provoked the protests.
......
A more recent US State Department-sponsored report notes that "Ukraine's strategic location between the main energy producers (Russia and the Caspian Sea area) and consumers in the Eurasian region, its large transit network, and its available underground gas storage capacities", make the country "a potentially crucial player in European energy transit" - a position that will "grow as Western European demands for Russian and Caspian gas and oil continue to increase."Ukraine is caught hapless in the midst of this accelerating struggle to dominate Eurasia's energy corridors in the last decades of the age of fossil fuels.
This programme has accelerated under Obama.....
So it would be naive to assume that this magnitude of US support to organizations politically aligned with the Ukrainian opposition played no role in fostering the pro-Euro-Atlantic movement that has ultimately culminated in Russian-backed President Yanukovych's departure.
............
But Russia's Gazprom, controlling almost a fifth of the world's gas reserves, supplies more than half of Ukraine's, and about 30% of Europe's gas annually. Just one month before Nuland's speech at the National Press Club, Ukraine signed a $10 billion shale gas deal with US energy giant Chevron "that the ex-Soviet nation hopes could end its energy dependence on Russia by 2020." The agreement would allow "Chevron to explore the Olesky deposit in western Ukraine that Kiev estimates can hold 2.98 trillion cubic meters of gas." Similar deals had been struck already with Shell and ExxonMobil.
The move coincided with Ukraine's efforts to "cement closer relations with the European Union at Russia's expense", through a prospective trade deal that would be a step closer to Ukraine's ambitions to achieve EU integration. But Yanukovych's decision to abandon the EU agreement in favour of Putin's sudden offer of a 30% cheaper gas bill and a $15 billion aid package provoked the protests.
......
A more recent US State Department-sponsored report notes that "Ukraine's strategic location between the main energy producers (Russia and the Caspian Sea area) and consumers in the Eurasian region, its large transit network, and its available underground gas storage capacities", make the country "a potentially crucial player in European energy transit" - a position that will "grow as Western European demands for Russian and Caspian gas and oil continue to increase."Ukraine is caught hapless in the midst of this accelerating struggle to dominate Eurasia's energy corridors in the last decades of the age of fossil fuels.
Looks like what may be happening is more big oil subsidies provided by the taxpayers in the form of military intervention and strong-arming on behalf of the oil giants, many of whom not only pay no taxes, but receive subsidies directly on top of their dead beat tax status.
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Or is it about oil and gas, too? "Ukraine crisis is about Great Power oil, gas pipeline rivalry" (Original Post)
grahamhgreen
Mar 2014
OP
No, because something over there is "in the interest of national security", ie,
grahamhgreen
Mar 2014
#5
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)1. Here's a novel idea
Maybe Ukrainians were pissed off at a thoroughly corrupt government that had done everything it could to avoid accountability from the ordinary people.
Nah, gotta be a conspiracy.
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)2. Right. So why are we involved at all?
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)3. Because we're not isolationists? nt
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)5. No, because something over there is "in the interest of national security", ie,
we need to pony up for big oil again at the expense of taking care of our own country.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)4. Crimea port is very important to Russia
and now that Ukraine has stated intentions of a separatist vote in a few days......
interesting times ahead.
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)6. That and the pipelines.