Since the 1960s, Ukraine has been a major corridor for the transit of Soviet – and, later, Russian – gas to Europe. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia became deeply dependent on the quasi-monopoly of Ukraine’s gas transit capacities, and thus tried to get control of this gas transportation system. When repeated attempts proved unsuccessful, the Russian government tried another gambit: it started looking for a way to bypass Ukraine’s monopoly by constructing new pipelines traversing either to the south or to the north of Ukraine. These efforts were marked by numerous gas disputes – amounting to gas wars – in which the Kremlin tried to portray Kyiv publicly as an unreliable gas transit partner for Europe. Among these wars, the most remarkable were 2005 – 2006 and 2008 – 2009 gas crises.

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