Vincent Lauerman, Financial Post
Since failing to be invited to begin negotiations for NATO membership in the spring of 2008 -- primarily because of Russian opposition -- Georgia and Ukraine each appear to have engineered a crisis with Russia in an attempt to demonize it in the West.
In early August, Georgia lost a lopsided five-day war with Russia over Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia. More recently, a commercial dispute between Russia and Ukraine over natural gas, something of a New Year's tradition in recent years, has lead to a prolonged disruption in European supplies.
Russia is an easy country to demonize given its Soviet past, Vladimir Putin's recent rhetoric against the United States and the Russian bear cozying up to China and a number of other authoritarian regimes under the umbrella of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
Fortunately, the loss of Russia to the dark side is not a forgone conclusion. In a visit to Washington in February, 2008, then-president Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, made it clear that Russia does not want the West as an enemy and that there is room to improve relations if the West begins to respect Russia's national interests.
U. S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, and successive rounds of NATO expansion -- moving deeper and deeper into Russia's traditional sphere of influence -- are viewed by Russians as especially detrimental to their interests.
For the sake of our own interests, the West should avoid blindly supporting countries such as Georgia and Ukraine in their disputes with Russia. Doing so merely pushes Russia deeper into an authoritarian bloc -- a threat to European Union energy security and a geopolitical and economic catastrophe as well. The major powers need to work together to counter the economic fallout from the global financial crisis, not break into competing political and economic blocs as in the past (for example, during the Great Depression).
At the time of the Russia-Georgia war, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's assertion that his country had acted defensively against separatist and Russian aggression tended to be received as the gospel truth in the West.
Georgia's military supposedly began shelling Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, and attacking the region in an attempt to protect ethnic Georgian villages from being destroyed by heavy artillery and missile bombardment. The Russian invasion of South Ossetia, Abkhazia (another breakaway region) and Georgia followed.
According to a Nov. 7 article in The New York Times, accounts by independent military observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe at the beginning of the war call into question President Saakashvili's description of events.
Most important, the monitors were unable to substantiate his claim that ethnic Georgian villages in South Ossetia were under heavy bombardment prior to Georgia moving its troops back into the region.
In contrast, the monitors indicated that Georgia's "indiscriminate" bombardment of Tskhinvali put civilians, unarmed monitors and Russian peacekeepers in harm's way.
In its latest dispute with Ukraine, Russia tends to be portrayed as a bully using the cold of winter to obtain better commercial terms for its natural gas and to punish Ukraine for leaning toward the West. There is no doubt Russia wants to raise the price it charges Ukraine for gas, and part of the reason is political. Russia has already ended Communist-era subsidies to other countries that have left its sphere of influence and there is no reason Ukraine should be an exception.
In a Dec. 17 editorial about the gas dispute, the Financial Times claimed "it is clear in this high-stakes game, Russia holds the top cards." Butfrom our perspective there are several reasons to believe that Ukraine is dealing from the bottom of the deck and is, in fact, winning the game:
-Ukraine is well-prepared for the gas disruption this time around. Since Ukraine produces almost a third of its sizeable gas needs and has over 16 billion cubic metres in storage, it can cover domestic consumption until late March without importing additional Russian gas.
-It was the Ukraine that first broke off commercial negotiations with Russia, not the other way around. On Dec. 31, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was supposed to fly to Moscow to conclude the gas negotiations, but pro-West President Viktor Yushchenko apparently undermined her effort.
-On Jan. 5, a Kiev court unilaterally annulled a transit agreement between Russia and Ukraine for gas destined to Europe which was to be valid until 2013. This decision allowed Ukraine to "legally" cut off Russian gas exports to Europe.
-Despite Russia and Ukraine agreeing to an EU-backed plan to restart exports to Europe (but not Ukraine), Gazprom had to declare force majeure on its European contracts on Jan. 13. Russia attempted to feed gas through one of the pipelines crossing the Ukraine, but Ukraine refused to transport the gas citing technical reasons. About 80% of Russia's gas exports to Europe transit the Ukraine.
Yesterday, Russia and Ukraine announced that they had reached a deal to end the impasse, promising that natural gas would begin moving within hours.
The 10-year arrangement, agreed to by Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, and Yulia Tymoshenko, his Ukrainian counterpart, drew criticism from Viktor Yushchenko, the Ukrainian president.
Ukraine appears to have done an excellent job of torpedoing the perception of Russia as a reliable natural gas supplier to Europe.
Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany -- the West European country with the closest ties with the Kremlin -- when she met with Prime Minister Putin on Jan. 16. indicated that Russia's reputation as a reliable supplier of gas to Europe could no longer be taken for granted.
A quarter of the EU's natural gas consumption is met by exports from Russia. Gas exports have been a foundation stone of Europe-Russia relations since the Soviet era.
-Vincent Lauerman is president of the Calgary-based consultancy Geopolitics Central, and the former editor of the journal Geopolitics of Energy.