The Oil Drum | Ukrainian Natural Gas Crisis Drags On

82 comments on Ukrainian Natural Gas Crisis Drags On

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Will Stewart on January 14, 2009 - 2:44pm

Should we be treating Russia Today as an unbiased source? Surely they will spin it to their side, just like they do the Georgia/Ossetia conflict. Journalists have left the organization because of bias.

Couldn't this just be a rumor campaign to try to stampede some of Ukraine's investors? Propaganda can be a powerful weapon; how many of Russia's media outlets are not controlled by the state?

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Syndroma on January 14, 2009 - 2:56pm

You don't have much choice. Almost all English-language media is at loss, they do not know what to write about the fast-changing situation.
Latest development:
Gazprom offers Slovakia gas swap to ease crisis
Gazprom offers gas swap to Ukraine

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Gail the Actuary on January 14, 2009 - 3:31pm

I am hoping other can offer whatever links they can find.

It is difficult to figure out what is happening. With all of our financial problems today, it seems like we are going to seem more and more businesses and whole countries on the edge of bankruptcy. We need to do whatever detective work we can.

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Will Stewart on January 14, 2009 - 4:17pm

Other links;
http://www.day.kiev.ua/en/
http://www.kyivpost.com/world/33316
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7827829.stm

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Syndroma on January 14, 2009 - 4:31pm

Links to active discussions:

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=148839 36 pages in English with Eastern European members among others.

http://forum.sevastopol.info/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=118889 346 pages in Russian with Russian/Ukrainian/Crimean members.

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mcgowanmc on January 14, 2009 - 7:35pm

It's time to call out US agit/prop.

I'm a media scholar and I'll take RT over the NYT/WSJ
all day long.

Does everyone here need reminding that Judith Miller is still
welcome on FOX?

Or that Georgia did indeed start the S Ossetia Fiasco
contrary to the US MEDIA?

And don't even get me started about the one topic that has studiously
NOT been mentioned here at TOD for the last three weeks.

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dakar on January 15, 2009 - 10:09am

Could you elaborate, which topic was TOD avoiding to mention?

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dissident on January 14, 2009 - 6:29pm

If the western media doesn't spew it then it is not "fact", eh?

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andrew on January 15, 2009 - 12:36am

I think what was implied was the opposite - that just because a non-western media outlet said it, it isn't necessarily any more likely to be a good source.
(ie, this source could be just as bad as anything in the west)

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dissident on January 14, 2009 - 6:40pm

That's some thick and rich shite you are peddling there. Why don't you explain why CNN was showing film of Tskhinvali and claiming it was Gori. Also tell the world how Human Rights Watch was able to assess the Ossetian death toll via telephone calls! HRW was also trying to claim that some cluster bomb casings it found were Russian when in fact they were Israeli used by the Georgians against Russian forces. Western propaganda is number one in the world.

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Will Stewart on January 14, 2009 - 7:29pm

This marks the 25th anniversary of "1984"...

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FrankRichards on January 14, 2009 - 8:00pm

Have you posted anything here except how saintly Russia is being abused at every turn by the evil evil west? I'm sincerely interested in what else you have to say about energy matters.

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dissident on January 14, 2009 - 9:50pm

Yushchenko insists on gas price of $205 for Ukraine
21:35 | 14/ 01/ 2009

WARSAW, January 14 (RIA Novosti) - President Viktor Yushchenko has insisted that Ukraine should pay $205 per 1,000 cubic meters for Russian gas and said the price for Slovakia should be no higher than $218.

"Subtracting the transit fee from the price Germany pays for Russian gas, the gas price for Ukraine should be $205 at the entry point in 2009," said Yushchenko, currently on a one-day working visit to Poland.

Russian energy giant Gazprom earlier said that since Ukraine had refused an earlier preferential price of $250 per 1,000 cubic meters it would now have to pay "the average European market price of $450-470."

Polish President Lech Kaczynski supported his Ukrainian counterpart saying that "the gas crisis that has swept Europe is linked to Russian policies."

Gazprom gave the go-ahead on Tuesday morning to resume gas deliveries via Ukraine, halted January 7 over a dispute with Kiev. However, no Russian gas was delivered through Ukraine to European consumers leading Moscow to accuse Kiev of blocking the gas deliveries.

Yushchenko denied on Tuesday that Kiev was blocking Russian gas transits to Europe or stealing gas, following a failure by Russia to make a test delivery through Ukraine.

------------------------------

Truth hurts, don't it sunshine.

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fluffy on January 15, 2009 - 4:28am

Of course, if you fully believe in lassiez faire economics then the market price for the Ukraine is whatever it can get Russia to agree to in return for Russia being able to access its export markets. Simply a case of using a negotiating position.

Of course, had the western countries/EU spend the last decade doing constructive things - helping build up the economies of ex soviet bloc countries, building nuclear plants, eventually moving towards adding Russia to the EU, then this problem wouldn't be happening.

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jamest on January 14, 2009 - 10:25pm

Will Stewart - you complain about Russia Today being biased, and then offer up links to two Ukrainian news organizations and the BBC? I for one think the BBC is just as biased as RT.

A couple of years ago I was staying in the hotel overlooking Independence Square in Kiev, and I could turn on my TV to watch RT or CNN and thus compare their news coverage of events in Kiev with what I could see with my own eyes. I was amazed by how similar RT and CNN were. Basically, when the Oranges (the US/UK friendly party) were protesting in the square CNN covered it non-stop and RT had no coverage. When the Blues (the Russian friendly party) were protesting in the square, RT covered it non-stop and there wasn't a whisper of coverage on CNN.

I became convinced that RT is modeled on CNN - they don't lie, they just subtly slant the coverage to be pro-russian. They "lie" by not discussing events or facts that are not in line with what they want their viewers to think. (As do western media outlets - when I asked a US newspaper correspondent I met in Russia why her and her colleagues never mentioned that Edward Liminov is a neo-nazi, she looked at me angrily and responded "He's getting better.")

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Will Stewart on January 15, 2009 - 11:10am

Thanks, you made my point. And I was responding with the other side of the story to the request;

I am hoping others can offer whatever links they can find.

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Syndroma on January 15, 2009 - 2:58am

I was amazed by the coverage in Western media of the latest parliamentary election. Especially this picture from BBC:

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44274000/jpg/_44274981_kasparov416afp.jpg

Opposition leaders like Garry Kasparov drew a big cross on their ballot papers - their verdict on what they call a rigged election.

Although they were pictured together, BBC never mentioned Limonov's name, only Kasparov's. I think they didn't find correct words to explain to their audiences why "the beacon of democracy" Kasparov is allied with the neo-nazi.

After this picture, BBC forever holds a stigma of propaganda in my eyes.

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RalphW on January 15, 2009 - 5:16am

Kasparov has big name recognition in the UK because he plays chess. Limonov is a complete unknown. The BBC is hopelessly dumbed down, they are not interested in Russian politics. They report the antics of retired chess players or retired cricketers.

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dparkins on January 14, 2009 - 11:25pm

In comparison to American and British media outlets RT is free and fair.

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Will Stewart on January 14, 2009 - 11:35pm

On this particular subject, their slant seems clearly biased towards Russian interests. So if they are 'free and fair' on topics of little to no international importance, and not on the important international issues, why should we pay any attention to them here?

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dparkins on January 15, 2009 - 1:34pm

Have you read WSJ, Guardian, telegraph, BBC, NYT coverage of the following events:
1. Litvinenko Death
2. BP row
3. South Ossetia.

The reporting on items 1&2 were biased. The reporting of item 3 was filled with outright lies in attempt to paint Russia as the "Aggressor".

Compare RTs coverage of the South Ossetia conflict with what is currently leaked out on the back page of the above media outlets. You will find RT was right from the start.

My point is not that RT is not biased, of course it is - like all media outlets. You probably read BBC and Telegraphs version of the BP row, why would you not read RTs version of the gas row.

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Will Stewart on January 16, 2009 - 10:12am

why would you not read RTs version of the gas row

I'd just as soon read an coal company report on global warming.

Of course, there's always some value in seeing one side of an argument, and we seem to be getting that from RT. Your claims about WSJ, NYT, et al are unsupported assertions. I'm sure Russian media had very different spins, at least on 1 and 3.

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dparkins on January 17, 2009 - 10:17am

"I'd just as soon read an coal company report on global warming."

This immediately reveals your irrational bias - no need to further discuss this topic with you.

My claims about WSJ, NYT et al are not assertions, they all have published articles recently showing that Georgia was the instigator/aggressor recently. All these articles match the version of events reported by RT at the time of the conflict

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