Russia Tried ‘Energy Dominance,’ and Markets Bit Back
A new history of Russia's gas industry holds a lesson for Trump.
Russian President Vladimir Putin at an energy conference in St. Petersburg in 2013.
Photographer: AFP/Getty Images
Russia and Ukraine, locked in a decades-long bad marriage when it comes to natural gas, just agreed to extend the misery a little longer. The arrangement by which Moscow had the gas and Kyiv had the pipes worked fine when both flew the hammer and sickle; not so much since their nominal divorce, with Ukraine moving out and Russia ultimately trying to move back in.
Geopolitical intrigue persuades even the most disinterested to take notice of energy markets. Yet, as a new history of the intertwined Russian and European gas industries shows, destiny is often shaped by the prosaic. There is plenty of drama in “The Bridge” by Thane Gustafson, an IHS Markit expert on Russian energy, from secret Cold War-era meetings in an Austrian castle to the tale of Ukraine’s former prime minister, revolutionary and one-time “gas princess,” Yulia Tymoshenko.