Loki
01-16-2009, 08:02 PM
Anger at German award for Russia's Vladimir Putin amid gas crisis (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/16/anger-at-german-award-for-putin)
The Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, has returned to his old haunts as a KGB agent in eastern Germany to attend the Dresden Opera ball and receive an 18-carat gold award in the middle of an energy crisis triggered by his decision to deny Siberian gas to half of Europe.
Putin's visit to Dresden, preceded by several Russian planeloads of security staff, cars, and equipment, came amid a flurry of competing summitry to try to settle Russia's bitter dispute with Ukraine over gas supplies and the launch of a new consortium of Russian and big western European energy companies aimed at isolating Ukraine.
Alexander Medvedev, the deputy head of Gazprom, the Russian gas giant, announced that the Italian energy company Eni and probably big German and French energy firms were joining forces to buy the gas needed to get the pipelines through Ukraine operable and defeat the Ukrainian blockage of the gas flows from Siberia to Europe.
The Italian and German firms, Eni and E.ON Ruhrgas, are Gazprom's biggest partners, and are controversially involved in two new Russian pipeline projects, Nord stream and Southstream, which would entrench Gazprom's control of Europe's gas supplies.
The agreement on the new consortium was bound to encourage criticism that Moscow and Gazprom were again succeeding in dividing the EU by dealing with its biggest west European clients, Germany and Italy, while bypassing the countries of central and southern Europe which are the main victims of the two-week-old gas war.
The decision to award Putin Saxony's Order of Gratitude, a gold carving of St George on horseback, stirred outrage in Dresden where Putin spent five years as a Soviet secret police officer in the 1980s before entering post-Soviet politics.
Werner Schulz, a former Dresden Green activist, described the move as "cynical and scandalous" in Der Spiegel magazine. Putin personally ordered the stoppage of Russian gas supplies to Europe last week.
Germany is Gazprom's biggest customer by far, and, unlike most of the countries of central and south-eastern Europe, it continues to receive Russian gas via pipelines that do not go through Ukraine.
The award is supposed to be conferred on "outstanding individuals who engage courageously for the present and future of Saxony and Germany."
Putin held talks in Berlin on the gas crisis with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and with western executives. Other east European leaders met Viktor Yushchenko, the Ukrainian president and a foe of Putin.
Yushchenko's rival, the Ukrainian prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, is to go to Moscow today for more negotiations, as are Czech and European commission officials.
The flurry of competing meetings and negotiations suggested disarray and intransigence rather than any coordinated approach that could bring a settlement, although the European Commission described the weekend sessions as a last chance. It warned of unspecified consequences for both Russia and Ukraine if the gas did not start pumping to Europe.
The Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, has returned to his old haunts as a KGB agent in eastern Germany to attend the Dresden Opera ball and receive an 18-carat gold award in the middle of an energy crisis triggered by his decision to deny Siberian gas to half of Europe.
Putin's visit to Dresden, preceded by several Russian planeloads of security staff, cars, and equipment, came amid a flurry of competing summitry to try to settle Russia's bitter dispute with Ukraine over gas supplies and the launch of a new consortium of Russian and big western European energy companies aimed at isolating Ukraine.
Alexander Medvedev, the deputy head of Gazprom, the Russian gas giant, announced that the Italian energy company Eni and probably big German and French energy firms were joining forces to buy the gas needed to get the pipelines through Ukraine operable and defeat the Ukrainian blockage of the gas flows from Siberia to Europe.
The Italian and German firms, Eni and E.ON Ruhrgas, are Gazprom's biggest partners, and are controversially involved in two new Russian pipeline projects, Nord stream and Southstream, which would entrench Gazprom's control of Europe's gas supplies.
The agreement on the new consortium was bound to encourage criticism that Moscow and Gazprom were again succeeding in dividing the EU by dealing with its biggest west European clients, Germany and Italy, while bypassing the countries of central and southern Europe which are the main victims of the two-week-old gas war.
The decision to award Putin Saxony's Order of Gratitude, a gold carving of St George on horseback, stirred outrage in Dresden where Putin spent five years as a Soviet secret police officer in the 1980s before entering post-Soviet politics.
Werner Schulz, a former Dresden Green activist, described the move as "cynical and scandalous" in Der Spiegel magazine. Putin personally ordered the stoppage of Russian gas supplies to Europe last week.
Germany is Gazprom's biggest customer by far, and, unlike most of the countries of central and south-eastern Europe, it continues to receive Russian gas via pipelines that do not go through Ukraine.
The award is supposed to be conferred on "outstanding individuals who engage courageously for the present and future of Saxony and Germany."
Putin held talks in Berlin on the gas crisis with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and with western executives. Other east European leaders met Viktor Yushchenko, the Ukrainian president and a foe of Putin.
Yushchenko's rival, the Ukrainian prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, is to go to Moscow today for more negotiations, as are Czech and European commission officials.
The flurry of competing meetings and negotiations suggested disarray and intransigence rather than any coordinated approach that could bring a settlement, although the European Commission described the weekend sessions as a last chance. It warned of unspecified consequences for both Russia and Ukraine if the gas did not start pumping to Europe.