“A modern transport infrastructure is the real road to Russia’s future,” said then-President Putin to a gathering of highway construction workers in the city of Krasnoyarsk in late 2007. And yet, not a single highway or expressway and only a smattering of smaller roads have been built in Russia over the past two decades. By comparison, China has laid more than 40,000 thousand miles of high-volume roadways over the same amount of time. “Naturally,” said Latynina, “this raises the question: Has anything been built in Russia with this money? And if yes, then what?”

It turns out that something was.

“For example, the presidential residence in the city of Yekaterinburg, which cost 1.2 billion rubles [about $40 million] to construct, and which President Medvedev has stayed in once,” said the journalist. A similar example was Konstantinovsky Palace in St. Petersburg, a crumbling historic landmark that Putin ordered be renovated in 2001 for use as a presidential residence. The official cost of renovation: $250 million.

There were more. One new presidential residence was constructed just two years ago. Another called Lunnaya Polyana is now in the works, blocked off from public view. An Olympic residence in Sochi is also planned for construction. All in all, said Latynina, Russia has built thirteen official residences for its president. Compare this, she proposed, to the number of official presidential residences in America: there are but two. And neither the White House nor Camp David is anything to rival the grandeur of Konstantinovsky Palace. “My point is that if you consider the number of residences, then Russia is a superpower and the United States just gets these two little things,” the journalist said.

On the topic of superpowers, Latynina questioned Putin’s declaration that Russia is a superpower in the raw materials market. “It’s very interesting to compare Russia with the production of natural gas in the United States,” she said, and followed to rattle off a list of figures: In 2008, Russia extracted 640 billion cubic meters of gas, 550 billion of which were from the state-owned company Gazprom – the latter figure being the more telling, as that’s what gets sold abroad. American production of gas totaled 582 billion cubic meters during the same year – less than Russia, but more than Gazprom. Then there’s the revenue: American gas sales totaled $185 billion in 2008, while Russian sales to Europe, its primary source of export, totaled only $47 billion. In addition, Russian production fell in 2009 to 575 billion cubic meters of gas, with 460 from Gazprom. America’s grew to 620 billion. “So why is Russia called a raw materials superpower?”

Russia, Latynina explained, has virtually no chemical industry. The United States, on the other hand, has the world’s most highly developed chemical industry. Thanks to its more energy-efficient facilities, she explained, the States are able to sell gas at a much higher price than Russia with its long, cold, ineffective pipelines. Meanwhile, instead of building more effective facilities, Gazprom built an exact replica of Konstantinovsky Palace for its CEO, Aleksei Miller. “I invite you to think about the philosophy of the matter,” said Latynina. “Bill Gates could not allow himself to build a Konstantinovsky Palace, because it’s a different philosophy of life… But Aleksei Miller could.”

Frivolous spending on the part of the Russian elite brought about the question of why the Russian government tells its citizens that “the West doesn’t love us.” If that were true, asks Latynina, then why would Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, Putin’s right-hand man, keep his plane in Helsinki and buy three different villas in Sardinia? Why are oligarch Roman Abromovich’s yachts registered in the West, including the $50 million one he gifted to Vladimir Putin? Why do all of the people who tell Russia’s citizens that the West doesn’t love them send their children to study in England? “Why don’t they keep their money in the banks of Iraq, North Korea, Venezuela, or the other wonderful countries that are friendly to Russia and love us a great deal?” asked Latynina.

In some cases, they do. On October 17, 2009, Prime Minister Putin announced the government’s decision to make a $500 million purchase of microprocessors with 90 nanometer process technology from the primarily government-supported French-Italian firm STMicroelectronics. Two weeks before this happened, Intel had announced that they were going to begin producing microprocessors with 32 nanometer technology. What was the point of buying something so expensive that was already out of date? According to Latynina, it was simply a way of transferring money abroad.

“In fact, for me it turns out to be a very sad story,” she went on. “It’s the story of the technical degradation of the foundation that we had from the Soviet Union.” While the STMicroelectronics purchase was sure to hinder the pace and efficiency of Russian industry and development, other instances of such degradation represented more direct threats to the safety of ordinary Russians. Poor construction and shoddy upkeep lead to the deaths of 75 people on August 17, 2009, when an old turbine in the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric dam spun out of control, breaking open the ceiling and flooding the facility. On the night of December 4, 2009, more than 150 people died in the Lame Horse club in the city of Perm when, having violated “every single possible fire safety regulation,” it shot up in flames. But most of the dead bodies dragged out of the club, Latynina pointed out, had no burn marks: the victims died almost instantly from smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning that resulted from burning foam polystyrene insulation. A commission set up to investigate the fire released its findings on March 9, concluding that the club’s own management was to blame. “But the scariest part is that it said in this report, verbatim, that ‘we cannot establish how harmful the foam polystyrene insulation was, how chemically harmful it was for people, for the reason that there was a lack of men on whom we would have liked to conduct experiments.'”

Really? “After the fire in the Lame Horse,” Latynina went on, “the government made quite a big fuss, especially President Medvedev. He loves to stomp his feet, crying ‘I’m going to deal with it,’ he always yells in future tense. ‘We must put an end to terrorism; we must put an end to corruption.’ I still haven’t heard that we’ve put an end to it, so it’s always in future tense.” It was clear, Latynina said, that the government wanted the situation to go away, and suppliers of construction materials had paid off the commission to keep silent about the foam. “So it turns out that they don’t have any men,” she said. “The president stomps his feet.”

Thus, in a nutshell, was Latynina’s dour prognosis of Russia’s current state of affairs.

During the questions that followed, Latynina was asked who would make a worthy Russian president. Her response: “Khodorkovsky,” the former oil tycoon currently sitting in prison. And what is to become of him? “He’ll sit in prison as long as Putin is in power.”

Latynina played down the audience’s fears that her safety was at stake for criticizing the Russian government. Arguing that Russia lacks internet censorship (as opposed to China) and allows Ekho Moskvy radio to broadcast whatever it wants, Latynina linked fears that free speech was being suppressed to the legacy left over from Soviet times. Back then, she said, people were arrested or murdered for speaking out against the government. “The maximum now is that they turn off the broadcast.” When numerous members of the audience objected that Russia figures as the third most lethal country in the world for journalists, Latynina countered that Russia was a lethal country for everyone. “It’s more dangerous to be a citizen of Russia than to be a journalist,” she said. “If you drive down Leninsky Prospekt and meet Lukoil Vice President Barkov, he’s not going to ask if you’re a journalist or not.”

That said, Latynina was skeptical of the effectiveness of initiatives by the Russian opposition, including a petition calling for Putin to resign that has so far gathered more than 18,000 signatures.

Asked for her opinion on Moscow’s plan to put up posters of Josef Stalin for Victory Day celebrations in May, Latynina replied: “Every person who wants to has a right to march for Stalin, because unlike Hitler, Stalin was never sentenced for having committed any crime – there are no laws saying that he was a criminal. But when it’s state-sponsored… You know, when dealing with these situations, I always think: What would Stalin do with Putin? He would put him up against the wall!”

It became apparent during the question and answer session that Latynina’s cynicism had frightened at least some members of her audience into considering the prospect that democracy in Russia was simply not possible, leaving Putin’s regime as the only viable choice. She was quick to dispel this notion, and delivered a more hopeful version of events then one might otherwise have come to expect. “First of all, I maintain that democracy in Russia is of course possible,” the journalist said in response. “But, you know, democracy is like a refrigerator. You can’t say that a certain refrigerator doesn’t work in Russia; it’s just that in Russia the electricity flows different. No – the refrigerator works in Russia if it has the particular electrical wiring for the place where you want it to work. If it doesn’t have the wiring, then it isn’t going to work.”

In a statement on Wednesday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that theft of unpaid energy resources would result in a supply cut for the rest of the continent, which receives much of its gas through pipelines crossing Ukrainian territory. “If they pay us for supplies for domestic consumption, they’ll get them,” he said. “If they don’t pay…they won’t get them. If they don’t get them, likely, there will be siphoning from the export pipeline,” in which case the supply would be cut entirely.

The prime minister also stated that the controversial South Stream pipeline proposal, which would channel gas supplies through the Black Sea, would be able to “discipline” Ukraine.

At the beginning of November, Prime Minister Putin warned the Swedish government, currently presiding over the European Union, of possible problems with transit of energy resources to European consumers through Ukrainian territory. According to Putin, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko blamed Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko for deliberately hindering gas payments to Russia despite being able to pay. Putin also cited Kiev’s gold reserves and statements from the International Monetary Fund as proof that Ukraine is not lacking in available funds.

Millions of consumers in Europe were left without gas for two weeks last winter when Russia followed through on a threat to cut supplies, blaming Ukraine for siphoning gas when their own supply was cut due to unpaid fines.

Shortages may come about if the Russian neighbor does not stock-up on enough natural gas, Sechin said, warning that Ukrainian gas infrastructure may not be sufficient in any case.

“If this is not done, the tragedy that we lived through in January will develop catastrophically,” Sechin said.  In January, Russia accused Ukraine of stealing gas for domestic use, and cut off gas supplies to the country.  Around 80 percent of Russia’s European-bound gas travels through Ukraine, and the shut-off caused widespread shortages across the continent.

Sechin said the EU and Russia must work together to help Ukraine update its transit network.  Russia had earlier been excluded from a EU-backed deal to develop Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

Sechin added that shortages of oil may ensue if Ukraine goes through with plans to re-work the Odessa-Brody pipeline and reverse its flow, cutting Russia from the pipeline.  The Deputy Prime Minister also criticized the Energy Charter Treaty, which he said failed to help in the winter gas dispute.

Piebalgs, meanwhile, responded to Sechin by asking him not to over-dramatize the situation.

“The Energy Charter treaty will continue to live its life until the countries that established it decide differently,” he said.

—

Political Analyst Stanislav Belkovsky, president of the National Strategy Institute, commented on Sechin’s statements for the Grani.ru online newspaper:

Igor Sechin’s declaration, just like Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s earlier speeches, have most of all an air of hysteria.  Russia’s leaders have been warned for many years that no good would come from their strategy of aggressive incompetence, which they have adhered to in their energy policy.

In January 2009 is was completely clear that another gas war, launched by Russia at the drop of a hat, would lead to a sharp intensification in construction of gas transport routes around Russia.  This is precisely what has happened.  If before January, the EU-Ukraine project was regarded simply though a political angle, then today it is a priority zone for the European Union’s economic interests.  The same can be said about the Odessa-Brody oil pipeline, whose use in direct deliveries has traditionally been considered economically unsound.  At first, the economic reasoning for building the Odessa-Brody pipeline was weak.  From a business point of view, it is noncompetitive as compared with the alternative Russian route, and this is precisely why it has only been used in the reverse (backwards) mode in recent years.

But now, when Europe has become tired of depending on the whim and incompetence of the Kremlin, the Russian Government, and Gazprom, it is plain to see that construction of the Odessa-Brody pipeline has new significance.  And even if the economic feasibility is lacking, the EU will do everything to force it to work in the opposite mode.

The new energy conception, proposed by Moscow as an alternative to the Energy Charter, is consciously weak and purely declaratory.  If anyone in the Russian Government thought that the EU would look at it seriously, then this can again be traced to incompetence.

The many years of childish, I’m not afraid of this word, approaches to the world energy market have undermined Russia’s positions as an energy supplier to Europe, have discredited Gazprom and its leadership, and have discredited the state oil companies.  Emerging out of this simply through emotional pressure on European bureaucrats, including EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs, won’t work.  It is clear that Russia must reconsider its strategy of market conduct in the energy sector.  Another question: is there time for this?  Possibly, there isn’t any left.  And it’s completely evident to me, that neither Igor Sechin, nor Vladimir Putin, nor Alexei Miller are capable neither of formulating a new strategy nor lobbying it through.

translation by theotherrussia.org

The summit, which the European Union dubbed the “last and best chance” for the two countries to keep their reputations as reputable gas suppliers, was the last in a series of failed attempts to end a protracted gas dispute. Countries in the EU and Eastern Europe have had gas supplies cut, and consumers and industry have lost power and heat in the dead of winter. The talks marked the highest-level negotiations over the dispute, as Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin met with Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and officials from their two respective national gas companies.

Medvedev said that it was improper to speak about yielding on the price Ukraine pays for Russian gas, one of the major issues in the dispute. “We cannot talk about some kind of compromises,” he told reporters, “and on the contrary, we need to talk about working in a civilized, measured way, based on those European prices that other countries work with.”

Instead of reproaching each other, the disputing sides should create an “effective mechanism of defense against these situations,” Medvedev said.

The president declined to comment on the theory that the current gas crisis was somehow influenced or protracted by the American presidential administration. “I am not a proponent of conspiracy theories,” he said, “and I won’t speculate now about anyone’s role or influence in [the conflict].”

The crisis in Russian-Ukrainian contractual relations on the delivery and transit of natural gas first started at the end of December 2008. The two sides first failed to agree on a way to resolve Ukrainian debt to Russian gas monopoly Gazprom, and could not reach a compromise on gas and transit prices for 2009. Ukraine paid Russia 1.5 billion dollars for past debts, but did not pay a controversial $614 million in alleged fines. As result, Gazprom cut gas deliveries to Ukraine on January 1st, while continuing shipments through the country.

Russia then accused Ukraine, a major transit route of gas supplies bound for Europe, of siphoning off gas for its own customers. All gas shipments through Ukraine were completely cut on January 7th.

The drop in Russian gas deliveries has led to emergency conditions in a number of European countries. Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Macedonia, the Czech Republic, Austria and Slovakia, which receive all their natural gas from Russia, have had no new shipments, and have eaten through their reserves. Volumes have also dropped significantly for Romania, Hungary, Poland, Germany, France and Italy. Several Eastern European countries have been forced to take emergency measures to conserve gas, shutting factories, closing schools and delivering heating only intermittently to some residential neighborhoods.

Those looking for a bright side in the global economic meltdown are fond of invoking the old line about finding opportunity in a crisis. But also keep in mind that there are those who will incite a new crisis to escape or distract from the current one. This is the scenario looming in Russia as the Kremlin faces increasing pressure on multiple fronts.

Russia and its fellow petrodictatorships are in dire need of a way to ratchet up global tensions to inflate the sagging price of oil. Petrodictators, after all, need petrodollars to stay in power. The war in Gaza and the otherwise inexplicable skirmish with Ukraine over natural gas have helped the Kremlin in this regard, but $50 a barrel isn’t going to be nearly enough. It will have to reach at least $100 and it will have to happen soon.

The effects of the financial crisis are rapidly reaching every level of Russian society. With no avenue for political expression left open to us, Russians are ready to take to the streets. Vladimir Putin has reacted true to form, ramming through new “anti-extremism” laws, building up the interior ministry’s paramilitary police forces, and increasing the volume of the xenophobic propaganda in state-controlled media.

The natural place for the Kremlin to find its new crisis is the Middle East. Open hostilities between Iran and Israel would lift the price of oil back to a level that would allow Mr. Putin and his gang to keep funding the crackdown. Israel’s anxiety over Iran’s nuclear-weapon ambitions is the most vulnerable link in a very weak chain.

There persists a very damaging myth in the West, spouted by politicians and the press, that says Russia’s assistance is needed with Iran and other rogue states. In fact, the Kremlin has been stirring this pot for years and has a vested interest in further increasing turmoil in the region. The Hamas/Hezbollah rockets, based on the Russian Katyusha and Grad, are not delivered via DHL from Allah. It doesn’t require the guile of a KGB man like Mr. Putin to imagine a way to accelerate Iran’s nuclear program, which has been aided by Russian technology and protected by the Kremlin from meaningful international action.

So the question for Western leaders is whether they doubt Mr. Putin would hesitate to provoke a war in the Middle East. If his regime falls, he and his cronies will face the loss of their immense fortunes and criminal prosecution when their looting is exposed. What are thousands of lives in the Middle East to a Kremlin mob that is openly preparing for the day when they will have to open fire on their own citizens to stay in power?

This “mad bear” theory is even more plausible when you consider how tolerant the current cohort of Western leaders has been regarding the destruction of democratic rights around the world. There appears to be no line the world’s despots — and would-be despots — cannot cross with impunity.

It is time to bury the failed model of dealing with the world’s antidemocratic and bloodthirsty regimes. The real change we must effect in 2009 is toward a new global emphasis on the value of human life. Anything less confirms to the enemies of democratic civilization that everything is negotiable. For Mr. Putin that means democracy; for Hamas it means Israel’s existence. The Free World must take those chips off the table.

Israel has the capability to annihilate Gaza to secure the safety of its people, but it chooses not to do so because the Israelis value human life. Does anyone doubt for a moment what Hamas would do if it had the power to wipe out every one of the five-and-a-half million Jews in Israel? Hamas should not be considered less a villain simply because it does not as yet possess the means to fulfill its genocidal agenda.

Terror suspects such as the United Kingdom’s “liquid-bomb” plotters and the recently convicted group plotting to kill U.S. soldiers at the Fort Dix military base were arrested before they were able to carry out their lethal plans. Those who call Israel’s assault on Gaza disproportionate should write down on a piece of paper exactly how many Israelis should die before the Israeli Defense Forces respond.

The leaders of Europe and the U.S. are hoping that the tyrants and autocrats of the world will just disappear. But dinosaurs like Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chávez and Iran’s ayatollahs are not going to fade away by natural causes. They survive because the leaders of the Free World are afraid to take a stand.

Years from now, when Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe is either dead or deposed, his legacy will lead to another genocide trial in The Hague. Why don’t Western powers, many of whom are condemning Israel’s action in Gaza, take action now to stop the extermination in Zimbabwe instead of waiting a decade for a trial? Criticizing Israel is easy while rescuing Zimbabwe is hard. Choosing the path of least resistance is moral cowardice. It does not avoid difficult decisions, it only postpones them.

Mr. Putin’s Russia has invaded one neighbor and is threatening to freeze much of Europe by shutting down natural gas pipelines that flow through Ukraine. But since confronting Mr. Putin would take courage, Western leaders pretend his help is needed. This policy of self-deception will have disastrous consequences.

The futile pursuit of balance and neutrality by Western leaders and the media has become nothing more than a cover-up for the gravest of crimes. No doubt they would have judiciously considered the “legitimate grievances” of Stalin, Hitler and bin Laden. The time to stand up to such monsters is before they have achieved their horrific goals, not after.

Mr. Kasparov, leader of The Other Russia coalition, is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal.

Writing for the Grani.ru online newspaper, Nikita Varenov examines Russia’s position in the talks, arguing that Russia may ultimately pay for the consequences of the energy scare.

Frost and War Bosses
Nikita Varenov
Grani.ru
1/7/2009

There is so much politics in the contractual relationships of Russia, Ukraine and the European Union on the issue of [natural] gas deliveries, that the emerging crisis can’t be understood as an argument between two business entities. Nonetheless, its resolution lies precisely there– there are national laws and international agreements, there are signed contracts. And one needs to read them to understand who is formally correct in the current situation. The different sides will do just that during negotiations this Thursday.

But a newly formalized gas transport reality isn’t the only result of the current conflict. The European Union, where factories have stopped working, schools have closed, and the heating supply has been interrupted as result of gas shortages, will not forgive one of the sides, it stands to reason. The likelihood that this will be Russia is fairly great.

The point is that as a consumer, the European Union is indifferent to the underlying reasons for the conflict. The restoration of uninterrupted gas deliveries is important for the EU, especially as a cold winter sets in. Ukraine can likely be charged for dishonest transit, especially if it is proven that gas theft actually took place. But Russia’s fault before the European Union is much greater: a producer and first order supplier cut shipments after failing to settle differences with a intermediary.

One cannot say that Gazprom is completely unprepared for the situation that arose. Reserves have been pumped into underground storage tanks on the territory of Europe. Additional volume is moving by alternate routes – through Belarus and the floor of the Black Sea. But in the end, this does not take the blame off Russia: shipments to ten friendly European countries have stopped completely; [shipments] to the rest have been cut by more than half.

Everything has been done tactically right at Gazprom, but the corporate group in principle lacks a strategy to diversify its distribution channels. A year ago, Russian humorists were already joking about a Ukrainian New Year’s [holiday] with gas-free champagne. But in 2008, nothing was done to ensure that in 2009, Europeans would have gas bubbles in their champagne.

Why it wasn’t done is a separate question. Relations with the Baltic countries have been built on discussing the results of the Second World War for decades. On the Belarussian front, Russia was more concerned in 2008 with twisting Lukashenko’s arms, so that he would finally recognize the independence of two semi-criminal enclaves in the Caucasus. In the last case, a reduced price for gas, by the way, was one of the levers of pressure (and this lever didn’t work largely because of Ukraine’s intractability –Moscow didn’t go for a conflict with two intermediaries at the same time.) In the Caucasus, finally, Russia managed to destabilize the situation to such an extent in the past year, that projects for a direct gas line from Turkmenistan are no longer being discussed (whether they bypassed Russia or not is already unimportant).

Of course, most problems in international relations go outside the realm of Gazprom’s authority as a commercial entity, but the point is that the gas group is not simply a commercial entity in the Russian economy and in Russian foreign policy. Russia (and Gazprom as a de facto government ministry) doesn’t tire of swinging its baton, trying to force its will on its neighbors without considering the costs. The start of Dmitri Medvedev’s presidency has been marked by this path, and it no longer matters how liberal he is on the inside.

The conflict in Georgia raised a boisterous reaction from Europe, but nonetheless had only peripheral meaning for it. Neither the severe Angela Merkel, nor the pragmatic leaders of Eastern Europe, nor the accommodating Nicolas Sarkozy, and especially not the ultra-loyal Silvio Berlusconi, initiated any real steps to pressure Russia then. Partly because of that infamous energy-dependence, however cynical that may sound. Today, when it’ll be the European voters freezing, and not the Georgian ones, their leaders will clearly be firmer.

The energy dependence, of course, won’t go anywhere. For now. And the European Union’s strategy to get rid of this dependence will definitely not go anywhere either. One of the possible steps to take when failures happen in the supply chain is to get rid of the middleman. How could the EU get rid of the Ukraine in its present guise? Accepting it into its group, for instance. Would the Russian authorities have the gall to eternally scare an EU member country with frost?

Not to mention that Russia needs a great deal from Europe. Europe isn’t just a market for Russian gas, but for countless other types of raw commodities and goods. And in many cases, unlike gas, they can be substituted, especially if there were a united political will for it.

Finally, that same gas is only valuable when it is being bought. Side by side with oil it is one of the major sources that replenish the Russian [currency] reserves, whose amount in times of crisis is especially important for the authorities. That being said, the prices for gas, unlike those for oil, don’t bounce by 5 percent a day. Taking into account the losses from January’s forced down time, even an insignificant reduction in the volume of future purchases is capable of reflecting critically on Gazprom’s incomes.

The parties will already start discussing new volumes, conditions and prices tomorrow. The EU has joined in the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in a directive capacity. And Russia’s position at these negotiations doesn’t look quite so strong as it seems at first glance.

translation by theotherrussia.org

The accusation comes as negotiations on gas shipments and pricing continue to stall. Russia cut gas supplies to Ukraine on Thursday, and earlier accused the country of attempted blackmail over price negotiations.

The Ukrainian state gas company, Naftogaz, denied that it was siphoning Russian gas, and the Ukrainian government promised that gas flows to Europe would not be interrupted.

Around 25 percent of Europe’s gas supplies come from Russia, and 80 percent of that comes through Ukrainian pipelines. Responding to fears that European supplies could be cut, the Czech Republic, which currently holds that European Union Presidency, called for crisis talks.

“Energy relations between the EU and its neighbors should be based on reliability and predictability,” the Czech presidency said in a statement. “We feel that the situation has now escalated to a point that substantiates an extraordinary meeting.”

Gazprom also announced Friday that Naftogaz would pay 1.5 billion dollars in outstanding fees by January 11th, but underscored that it was still owed 614 million dollars in penalties. No agreement on 2009 supply had been signed, the company said.

Russia has been accused of using gas flows as a lever of political pressure against Western-leaning neighbors, and last cut supplies to Ukraine in 2006. The latest spat may damage Russian credibility as a stable supplier of natural gas.

Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said Thursday that Ukraine should pay 418 dollars per thousand cubic meters (tcm) of natural gas, up from 179.50 in 2008, and up from Gazprom’s first proposal of $250 per tcm. Naftogaz has said it cannot pay more than $235 per tcm for the gas.

For the moment, Europe is safe from any short-term after-effects of the break in negotiations. With warm weather ahead, existing supplies are expected to last for at least one month.