Russian back-stabbing and blame game

As this Romanian member of Yahoo Ukraine list has pointed out and Romanian media has publicized, the Gazprom subsidiary in Moldova was stealing gas coming in from Ukraine that was intended for delivery further downstream, to Romania and Bulgaria. And then Gazprom accused Ukraine of stealing Russian gas!

This has a Russian signature all over it. Just like the attempts by the Russian security services to hire Ukrainians to fight against Russians in Georgia, which, if it were successful, it could then use to accuse Ukraine of fighting Russia in Georgia. What other purpose any of this could have other than to make Ukraine look bad and to try to drive a wedge between Ukraine and the EU and set up both European and Russian citizens Ukraine...

>In the Romanian mass media that matters, Ukraine is no longer portrayed as a "gas thief". This is partly because of what has happened in Russia, and partly due to the disclosures related to the diversion of the gas from the pipelines for Romania and Bulgaria by the Moldovan subsidiary of Gazprom and by the Moldovan authorities. One senses that Voronin's attempt to back-stab Ukraine economically through this (to divert gas, and create the impression that Ukraine is doing it), and the buying of electrical power from a Transnistrian gas company instead of from Ukraine (Ukraine is exporting 1/3 of her spare electric power to Moldova) is more than the Ukrainian Orange authorities are willing to accept. With Moldova having gas reserves for 24 hours, one senses that the Communists' popularity will be broken. They will come off looking bad. The issue nevertheless needs to be posed: didn't, by propping up Voronin, helping him get re-elected in 2005 with the help of a part of the opposition, Yushchenko and a part of the Orange Kyiv feed the Tasmanian devil called the Moldovan Communists, which is now biting Ukraine's leg? The reason why they did it do not matter, but the fact that it was done has turned against Ukraine like a boomerang. I repeatedly warned about what the Moldovan Communists were up to, and I wasn't alone. Yet Orange Kyiv has learned everything "the hard way", as it always seems to do, not like the good student, but like the student who crams before the exam.

All the best,

Ionas