Leonid Bershidsky, Columnist

How Ukraine Weaned Itself Off Russian Gas

A changing European market deprives Putin of leverage.

January 12, 2016 at 6:00 PM UTC

Leonid Bershidsky, formerly Bloomberg Opinion’s Europe columnist, is a member of the Bloomberg News Automation Team. He recently published Russian translations of George Orwell’s “1984” and Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.”

Losing his clout.
Photographer: Dmitry Astakhov/AFP/Getty Images

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Not so long ago, Russia could bend Ukraine to its will by threatening to cut off natural gas supplies. Now, Russia is offering discounts, but Ukraine is not interested because it's getting plenty of gas in Europe. This change reflects developments in the European gas market that don't augur well for one of Russia's biggest sources of export revenue.

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