Posted by
Bullfrog on Tuesday, January 09, 2007 6:43:49 PM
From the UK Times:Europe’s oil supplies from Russia were being held to ransom last night
as the Kremlin fell into bitter dispute with a former Soviet satellite
state.
Moscow
abruptly halted millions of barrels of oil destined for the EU via
Belarus in an increasingly hostile wrangle with its neighbour.
The move raised further questions over whether Western Europe can
trust Mr Putin for its energy supply. Experts said that Russia had a
deeply entrenched habit of manipulating oil and gas supplies as a
substitute for diplomatic policy.
Was there ever any question that Putin could not be trusted? Since when has the KGB been known for diplomacy? The KGB mindset simply cannot be exorcised from Putin.
The oil dispute centres on a tit-for-tat row over taxes. Minsk
introduced a penalty on January 1 on Russian oil crossing Belarus to
Europe, in retaliation against Moscow’s decision to slap a duty on oil
it sold to Belarus. A government delegation from Belarus flew to Moscow
last night to try to negotiate a settlement. But Mr Sharonov said that
there would be no talks until Minsk cancelled its tax.
The way I read this is that Belarus reluctantly had to accept a doubling of its price of oil from Russia. Having done so, it wanted to recoup some of that cost by imposing a tax on the oil it sends along through to Europe. Russia got its knickers in a twist accusing Belarus of cutting off its European market, so Belarus is now caught in the middle.
All in a day's work, Mr. Putin, right?