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Opinion
March 16, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 23
strike the hardest when they are the weakest. No wonder that in a situation when according to all standards of the civilized world Russia has lost, the Kremlin reaches for blunt blackmailing and threatening tactics.
Threatening to cut off transit contracts with Ukraine and providing no plan of how Gazprom intends to deliver gas to Europeans is a playbook example of Russian negotiating tactics. Nothing has changed since Soviet times: Russia opens with an extreme position and sticks to it unless the other side takes the burden on itself. And ap- parently, Russia knows it counterparts quite well. One of the first official EU reactions was an offer to mediate and a call for both Ukraine and Russia to find a compromise.
I wonder, what kind of compromise is possible in the situation when one side is refusing to obey the court ruling and one-sidedly breaks the provisions of the contract. I know we are talking about geo- politics, but even so, a position that Ukraine ought to look for a compromise because Gazprom re- fuses to follow the rules is simply wrong. If there is one thing that Russia has learned from the past EU foreign policy choices is that the Union values stability over (almost) everything else. This is what Russia hopes to get: in the choice between a bad Russian gas deal or no deal, Russia wants Europe to choose the first one.
That would be a really bad choice. Over and over again Russia keeps repeating that it has no re- spect for the international law, that it is ready to play along with the rules as long as it is the one establishing them, and that Gazprom is just one of the branches of the presidential administration. Sometimes I have a feeling that Western coun- tries live in a dream that Russian will never repeat the way it is treating Ukraine in the way it treats
European countries. Since Russia has no respect for Ukrainian sovereignty it allows itself to treat Ukraine brutally and nastily.
Here's one more thing you should bear in mind: Russia has no respect for countries whatsoever; Russia only has respect for force. And as long
as Europeans will continue dreaming of "busi- ness as usual" and hoping Russia will change its policies, criticising and sanctioning Russia and doing big geopolitical projects at the same time, Kremlin will think of Europe as weak and easy to blackmail. In fact, there's nothing extraordinary we must do, just stick to our rules and principles. If Europe is reinforcing the rule of law in other countries it should also lead by example and show that no thugs with a gas needle can threaten so many countries.
For sure, Germany just like any other country
can plan and develop business projects and try
to create better conditions for its own economy. But there is never business without politics. No cheaper gas can be more important than a politi- cal independence. It is naive to think that once having even bigger leverage over Europe, Russia won't use it. It is shortsighted to suppose Ukraine will be the only one Russia will be waging gas war against. So Europe, don't surrender to blackmail and stop building a Trojan horse with Russia,
a Nord Stream II.
An activist, journalist and co-founder of Global Ukrainians, an international network of Ukrainians worldwide, Kateryna Kruk was awarded the Atlantic Council Freedom Award for her work communicat- ing the Euromaidan revolution to the world. She predicted a frozen conflict in July 2014, which has largely come to pass, and now comments on the progress of crucial reforms in Ukraine.