Page 21 - bne_newspaper_May_03_2019

Opinion
May 3, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 21
Naftogaz and Ukraine’s gas wars
The gas war between Ukraine’s national monopolist Naftogaz and the Russian behemoth Gazprom is rushing towards a climax. Last December Naftogaz won a historic $2.6bn award from Gazprom at the Stockholm arbitration court, but Gazprom refused to pay and now the Ukranian energy company is trying to recover the money by seizing assets.
But the showdown between the two corporate giants will crescendo at the end of this year when Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline comes online that will allow Gazprom to cut Ukraine
out of the delivery loop entirely. Naftogaz' base case scenario is Russia will stop sending any
gas through the Ukrainian pipelines even if
Nord Stream 2 is not ready. Both companies
are building up reserves in preparation.
At home Naftogaz is fighting another set of battles. The company is in profit and the biggest tax payer to the government, but it is in the midst of reforming the energy sector, which remains for the moment uninvestable. Moreover a nasty fight has broken out between Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman and Naftogaz’s CEO Andriy Kobolev.
bne IntelliNews editor-in-chief Ben Aris talks to Naftogaz’s executive director Yuriy Vitrenko about these and other issues.
Yuriy Vitrenko
Executive director Naftogaz
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"Ukrainians are free people in a free country," he said in a statement posted on Facebook in Ukrain- ian and Russian – the point of which is Zelenskiy has already started to direct his message not
just at the Kremlin but at the Russian people as
a whole. This is Putin’s weakness, because as Russia’s real income goes into its sixth year of stagnation faith in Putin is starting to fade. Zelen- skiy is positioning himself to become not just Ukraine’s president, but a role model of what a president should be for all of the countries of the former Soviet Union (FSU) by going over the head of the governments and appealing directly to the people of the FSU using social media. In effect Zelenskiy could become the face of the Russian opposition.
“But what sets Ukraine apart is that here we have free speech, media and internet. And that is why we know what a Russian passport really means: the right to be arrested for a peaceful protest; the right to have no free and fair elections; the right to forget that the inalienable human rights and freedoms even exist,” Zelenskiy's post reads.
“Ukrainians are a free people in a free country that is independent, sovereign and indivisible. Ukrainian citizenship means freedom, dignity and valour. This is what we have been defending and will continue to defend. Ukraine will not give up its mission to be a model of democracy for the post-Soviet states, which will include extending protection, asylum and Ukrainian citizenship to anyone ready to fight for freedom. We will shelter and defend anyone ready to fight side by side with us for your valour and victory,” Zelenskiy concluded.
Zelenskiy introduced this theme in his election victory speech with what may become prophetic words: “To countries of the former Soviet Union: Look at us. Anything is possible!”
The danger for the Kremlin has always been if Ukraine can be turned into a success and incomes catch up with or overtake Russia, that would be
an extremely effective way of undermining the