{"id":3307,"date":"2009-01-14T16:10:25","date_gmt":"2009-01-14T23:10:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/2009\/01\/14\/vladamir-putin-frightens-children-again\/"},"modified":"2009-01-14T16:10:25","modified_gmt":"2009-01-14T23:10:25","slug":"vladamir-putin-frightens-children-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/2009\/01\/14\/vladamir-putin-frightens-children-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Vladamir Putin Frightens Children Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s an interesting\u00c2\u00a0proxy battle<\/a> between Russia and the Ukraine, on the\u00c2\u00a0surface level\u00c2\u00a0over natural gas trade agreements but at a deeper level about geopolitical posturing, which you’re probably not paying attention to.<\/p>\n

MOSCOW \u00e2\u20ac\u201d The feud between Russia<\/font> and Ukraine<\/font> over natural gas prices and transit fees has left large swaths of Europe without heat. Yet, what is baffling is that the dispute has always seemed overly technical and easily resolved, if there was the slightest desire on either side. After all, both countries stand to profit from selling fuel to Europe.
\nThe latest agreement collapsed Tuesday, in a familiar cacophony of complaints and countercomplaints, and again over a seemingly trivial issue. With European Union<\/font> monitors along the pipeline to make sure that Ukraine did not divert any gas for its own use, Russia agreed to resume shipments to Europe.
\nBut rather than repressuring the Ukrainian pipeline system for exports, Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gas monopoly, Gazprom<\/font>, ordered a single test shipment to see if it would pass through Ukraine to Europe, through a pipeline that was being used to supply the Ukrainian city of Odessa. Ukrainian authorities refused, saying they did not want to cut supplies to their own people, and Russia again halted shipments \u00e2\u20ac\u201d not, some experts believed, reluctantly.
\nPolitical experts say that neither side is motivated to settle the dispute, because it has never been about the stated issues. Instead, it has been a proxy for far more fundamental and insoluble matters, particularly Ukraine\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 2004 turn to the West in the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Orange Revolution,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which deeply shook Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nationalists. <\/em><\/p>\n

All very alarming and intricate, but none of it concerns me too much.\u00c2\u00a0 What I want to know is…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

When and how did Vladimir Putin’s right hand\u00c2\u00a0turn into\u00c2\u00a0a Fin?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s an interesting\u00c2\u00a0proxy battle between Russia and the Ukraine, on the\u00c2\u00a0surface level\u00c2\u00a0over natural gas trade agreements but at a deeper level about geopolitical posturing, which you’re probably not paying attention to. MOSCOW \u00e2\u20ac\u201d The feud between Russia and Ukraine over natural gas prices and transit fees has left large swaths of Europe without heat. Yet, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3307\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}