How Kiev adds to bear’s sore head ;analysis
by Douglas Fraser

The Herald (Glasgow)
November 26, 2004

THE great Russian bear has a sore head, with the turmoil in Ukraine
simply adding to the nagging pain. Having watched its empire
disintegrate and economy crumble, it has found that the ability to
throw its weight around is strictly limited, and mainly to its near
neighbours.

Not only does it face the intrusions of an assertive hyperpower in the
US, but the European Union has become a much more serious player on its
border since eight of its former Warsaw Pact satellites signed up for
membership and shifted their political allegiances to far-off Brussels.

There is also other satellites lining up to join the EU, including
Bulgaria and Romania. So Moscow wonders: would a westward-leaning
Ukraine be far behind in the EU queue?

But being economically weak should not mean Russia, and its influence
on such as the Ukraine, should be forgotten. The coming issue in
geopolitics is energy security. Emerging economies, such as China’s,
are demanding more oil to fuel growth rates. Europe is looking beyond
declining North Sea reserves for its oil and gas, and, along with
America, everyone wants to become less dependent on the volatile
Middle East.

So the vast expanse of Siberia and the newly independent nations around
Russia are becoming ever more important to international politics
and economics. The key questions are who and which companies get to
the oil and gas reserves, and how they get them to the markets. That
brings together the tricky game of mixing diplomacy, multi-national
oil majors and pipeline supplies. At the heart of this question is
that Russian bear, still nursing a sore head and wanting to make sure
no-one is going to take it for granted, especially as the EU expands.

According to Brussels, the EU’s next era of diplomatic developments
will be to tie together the competing concerns of the 25 members.
While the western countries want to open up links to Russia, both
for their oil firms and to secure future supplies, the eight former
Soviet satellites want to keep Moscow at arm’s length.

America wants oil supply lines from the former southern Soviet
republics of Armenia and Georgia to be piped and freighted via a
route that by-passes both Russia and Iran. The key aim of any energy
security policy in the region is to leave options open, so that if
Russia turns off the taps then they can be turned on elsewhere. This
is not far removed from the US involvement in Iraq.

For hawks in Washington and Moscow, there is the easy familiarity
of a return to the cold war days, using client states and puppet
administrations to fight over this large eastern European and central
Asian turf.

The past Soviet policies of moving ethnic Russians into many of
its then client republics has left a complex politics of ethnic
tension in many, as with Ukraine. Its removal as the superpower
dominating the region has allowed local ethnic rivalries to threaten
instability. Ukraine’s tensions are only one part of a much messier
geopolitical battlefield.