Gas Wars

By the way, there is still a very complex conflict in Ukraine. This article does a nice job of summarizing the problem: Russia is Hoping to Freeze Ukraine into Submission

Some major points:

  1. Ukraine has avoided using Russian natural gas for the last two years
  2. It is now a particularly cold winter there and it appears that they will run out of their own gas by the end of February or mid-March.
  3. Therefore, they will probably have to buy from Russia…but….
  4. They owe Russia $3 Billion that Russia loaned to the ousted Yanukovich regime.
  5. Also Gazprom is claiming from Ukraine:
    1. $32 billion for breach of contract lawsuit.
    2. $5.3 billion owed for a take-or-pay clause in their contract.
    3. Bills for sending gas to the separatist regions of Lugansk and Donetsk.
  6. Ukraine is paid $2 billion a year for the transit of Russian natural gas to the EU.

Russia is trying to bill Ukraine for gas delivered to a separatist movement that Russia supported. I am surprised they are not charging them for building the bridge across the Kerch Strait to Crimea (expected to be operational in 2019).

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Christopher A. Lawrence
Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.

Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.

His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) and The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019)

Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

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