We've recently heard more veiled threats from Putin about Ukraine being unable to pay for gas (thus presumably leading to new attempts at cutting them off), which suggests that Russia is getting itself ready to start a new crisis. That means two things:

1. the internal infighting between groups of powerful Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs for the control of unofficial Russian gas deliveries to Ukraine (more on this below) is still not conclusively settled, and requires "action" using official levers of State and interference with Gazprom's export deliveries through Ukraine;
2. Russia thinks it stands a better chance to focus European blame on Ukraine and, even more importantly, to get Europeans to buy off the Ukrainians (thereby increasing the available unofficial gas loot for the players involved).

While Russia's actions are not easily understandable when considered as those of a country, they are much easier to interpret rationally when you look at who the actual players behind the scenes are. Conversely, public European reactions which sound logical are, in fact, incredibly naive if you know the industry a bit and, given that the people involved are certainly not naive, they are other things at stake.

So let's try to make some predictions and unravel what's actually going on.

Originally posted on European Tribune. See also my full series of articles on earlier episodes of the Russian-Ukrainian crises here