When Belorussians Attack

All of Europe gets cut off from crude oil supplies, apparently. Somewhat ironically, for the past few years the hot foreign policy concern has been that Russia would use its energy reserves to try and coerce Western European countries into doing something or other. Instead, Western Europe is being cut off as Belarus attempts to coerce Russia. At least maybe that's happening. Alternatively, it might just be an accident.

1/8/07 1:48PM del.icio.us this incoming links

Comments

Isn't a falling-out between those two supposed to be a good thing? For one thing, the Kremlin has supported Lukashenko in quashing any sort of democracy there. And a few years ago the conventional wisdom, as I understood it, was that Putinism would be in jeopardy in Russia if Lukashenko's dictatorship were to fail.

Posted by: Wade on January 8, 2007 02:25 PM

Off-topic, but surely this Sam Cassell Alien Video Game will be a welcome thing to link to here:

http://remaincalm.org/aliensam.html

Posted by: Haggai on January 8, 2007 03:03 PM

"Off-topic, but surely this Sam Cassell Alien Video Game will be a welcome thing"

Why is that off-topic? How do we know San Cassell isn't Belorussian?

(And while we're on the topic of Belorussian Sammy, go check out ClipperBlog's pain.

Posted by: Petey on January 8, 2007 03:25 PM

Belarus has been hacked. I'll call the FBI.

Posted by: ogged on January 8, 2007 03:27 PM

What appears to have happened is that Belarus took gas that Russia said it was not entitled to take and so Russia turned off the gas. It seems that both parties bear some responsibility. Russia's response, though, seems rather inappropriate.

Posted by: blah on January 8, 2007 03:38 PM

"What appears to have happened is that Belarus took gas that Russia said it was not entitled to take and so Russia turned off the gas."

I fail to see how this sheds any light on Sam Cassell's role in the affair.

Posted by: Petey on January 8, 2007 03:56 PM

Lukashenko better steer clear of the sushi. For that and more gimmicky and ill-informed analysis, please visit widosnewestblog.blogspot.com.

Posted by: Wido on January 8, 2007 11:01 PM

Right - the Russians demanded Belarus pay more for its gas and give them a bigger share of the pipeline to western Europe. The Belarussians threatened to cut off the gas being exported across their territory, but eventually gave in.

They then escalated by imposing a tax on Russian crude oil transiting their country towards western Europe, which the Russians refused to pay. The Russians then, rather than wait for the Belarussians to turn off the tap, turned it off themselves.

This of course hurts them as much as it hurts the Belarussians, which is why the Belarussians started this row. It's nowhere near "all" of Europe that's been cut off, btw - the other two main oil pipelines through the Ukraine are unaffected, as are (of course) tanker deliveries and the North Sea fields.

Posted by: Alex on January 9, 2007 05:31 AM

It's essentially like an Internet peering dispute.

Posted by: Alex on January 9, 2007 05:32 AM

Siberian Light has the details.

Posted by: Alex on January 9, 2007 06:58 AM

Thanks for the plug, Alex.

Your're right to say it's not all of Europe affected - effectively, it's just Germany and Poland, really, as they are the countries served by the pipeline that runs through Belarus. And, both Germany and Poland have stockpiles of oil equivalent to about 120 days supply, I believe (it's an EU law that all member states have a reserve). For the countries affected, the cutoff is an annoyance, nothing more. Nobody's going to go cold this winter.

For my money, neither Russia nor Belarus come out of this whole affair with any credit. I'm reasonably ok with the concept of Russia refusing to supply oil, once Belarus starts stealing it. The analogy I'd draw is that of a transport ship. If BMW are shipping cars across the ocean in a transport ship, and the owners of that ship start stealing the cars, so that only 60% of them end up at their destination, everyone would support BMW if they decided they didn't want to ship cars via that route any more - even if it was the only route. The same should apply to oil. Belarus look stupid here, in my opinion, because they are the thieves in this incident.

However, Russia lose credit, because the way in which they treated Belarus in recent negotiations over gas prices was entirely unethical. They took advantage of Belarus' weak position and threatened to cut off the supply of gas unless Belarus not only agreed to price rises, but sold off half their gas transit network for a song.

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