Preventing New Gas Wars
Simon Pirani, a senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, comments that although Ukraine's troubles with Russian gas and Russia's troubles with Ukrainian transit are not over yet, political relations between the two countries should improve after the second round of the presidential election on February 7.
Pirani notes that regardless of who wins the final vote, one thing is sure: Ukraine's next president will be less antagonistic toward Moscow than outgoing President Viktor Yushchenko. However, he acknowledges that although the two countries avoided a "gas war" this year, the underlying problems that caused previous gas wars remain unsolved.
The gas wars were largely caused by Ukraine's dependency on Russian gas and Russia's dependence on Ukrainian transit. Pirani concludes that reducing those dependencies may hasten gas peace.