How to talk with monopolist?

President Viktor Yanukovych acted fairly decent during his meeting with a newly elected Russian President Vladimir Putin, in the view of the fact that it is rather difficult to be in the permanent position of a one who is asking for something. One has to possess great patience. “We simply do not have that much money to pay for such expensive gas,” said Yanukovych after his meeting with Putin in Moscow. He also made it clear that if Ukraine got a “normal price,” then there would be no need to look for other suppliers. The Day asked for comment on the visit of the Ukrainian president to Russia and on his negotiations with Putin.

Olena DIACHENKO, director of the consulting company “Party of Power”:

“President Viktor Yanukovych during his meeting with Putin at the summit of CIS leaders looked exactly like any purchaser of energy resources would look in negotiations with a world monopoly on the production of hydrocarbons. We should remember that this conversation was far from being the last between Kyiv and Moscow. Moreover, it is expected that Putin’s rhetoric will be much stiffer than that of his predecessor. This will affect not only Ukraine; Putin intends to speak in this manner with the rest of the world too. The evidence of this is his refusal to attend the G8 Summit, which the President Barack Obama moved from Chicago to Camp David specially because of him. What concerns the fairness of the price for gas, two states have opposite meanings regarding this. Russia has no intention of losing its excess profits, which are ensured by its position of the gas monopolist, and as always in the fall the gas issue will again become acute. Putin does not conceive the fact that he is actively looking for leverage over Ukraine both within our country and in the world. He has already have some success in it, for example Germany, which now strikes the keynote of policy in Europe has to reckon with the ambitions of Russia because it is the largest consumer of Russian gas.”