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Russia and Ukraine agree on gas and global fleet

• Russia and Ukraine today signed a comprehensive agreement, which sets back the clock five years of European politics: the conflict that had cleared the opposite authorities "orange" from Kiev to the Kremlin, the two countries back to cooperate fully.

  

  The Russian Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol

  The deal does away with the two larger knots so far unresolved - deliveries of Russian gas to Ukraine and the presence of the Russian navy base of Sevastopol, in Crimea, Ukraine - linking the two issues into a single contract: Moscow to Kiev will make a huge discount on the price of gas (30% less) to leave Russia and Ukraine on the use of the base of Sevastopol for 25 years after the expiry of the lease in force (valid until 2017), extended by five more. In practice, since the grant of the base in Kiev does not cost anything, it is a substantial Russian help near the disaster (it is estimated a total of at least $ 40 billion over the period) in exchange for a loss of sovereignty of that 'last. As for gas, in fact, not only Moscow agreed to reduce the cost only in January between the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and the then his Ukrainian colleague Yulija Timoshenko, but will also avoid to apply the sanctions foreseen in case of buying less than what was agreed, on the other hand, already had a few weeks ago Yanukovich said that even Russia will Involved in major project the restoration of the Ukrainian pipeline network, launched last year by Kiev in cooperation with the European Union. In essence, Moscow will greatly increase his control over the entire network, presenting the coming decades as the sole supplier of gas to Europe without problems.

  

  pipelines in Ukraine

  They were the two presidents, Viktor Yanukovich, the Ukrainian and Russian Dmitry Medvedev, to put his signature on the historic agreement during Medvedev's visit to Kharkiv. Yanukovych has called the stay until nearly the middle of the century the Russian Black Sea fleet in Crimea "an important contribution to regional security" and said he regarded the agreement as part of a larger project for common security in Europe. Medvedev in turn said the agreement on the fleet gives us a certain perspective and allows us greater global peace, "which obviously makes it easier to make robust economic concessions, despite the crisis is not not at all over, as revealed by the latest statistics (in the first quarter 2010 growth in Russia was only by 0.6 percent, lower than that of the last three months of 2009) and as the premier Putin admitted yesterday in his report before the Duma. The Russian president has also pledged to invest more capital for "the economic and social renaissance of Sevastopol, which is now a city rather shabby and careless by the authorities in Kiev.

  The agreement must be ratified by both parliaments: no problem to the Russian Duma, the less obvious the ratification by the Ukrainian Rada, where the majority of which have Yanukovich is not very wide and where the issue of Sevastopol is a matter of bitter dispute. The former head of state Viktor Yushchenko, had a national flag of the "recovery of Sevastopol, and other opposition MPs have already started saying that the agreement violates the Ukrainian constitution and should be rejected. Also in the Party of Regions of the President, moreover, there are many nationalists who do not like the idea of \u200b\u200ba transfer of sovereignty so demanding, we must see whether the project "Ukraine a neutral, non-aligned friends with all neighbors ", used by Yanukovych to justify the drastic change of course in foreign policy than the previous five Members will be compelling for what it was for the voters.

  E 'certain that the news today - that is the logical conclusion of a "long march" of rapprochement between the two countries - will bring a lot of irritation in Washington and NATO, which also formally coming down (after politically) the draft inclusion of Ukraine in the "field" Western military in anti-Russian (and more) and a project especially dear to the administration of George W. Bush and Barack Obama had not reneged, but without insisting more after his election. Other countries have certainly reacted negatively to the Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili, who feels directly threatened by the Russian Black Sea fleet, and possibly Poland, which has never hidden the hegemonic ambitions against Kiev - or at least the desire to pull out most clearly as possible the Ukraine from Russia.

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published on April 21, 2010

source: http://blog.ilmanifesto.it/estestest/2010/04/21/russia-e-ucraina-accordo-globale- up-and-gas-fleet /