The dispute between Russia and Ukraine seems to have been resolved, but the question of blame remains. Did Moscow deliberately risk allowing half of Europe to go without heat merely to teach Kiev a lesson? Whoever is to blame it is clear that neither Brussels nor Berlin did much over the past few years to avert the crisis. Oleg Dubina, 49, the chairman of the Ukrainian state-owned energy company Naftogaz, looks like he has been up all night. With deep rings under his hooded eyes, he sits in conference room ASP 5G3 at the European Parliament in Brussels. Dubina is considered the most adept crisis manager in the former Soviet republic. When he flew to Brussels via Moscow last Thursday his most important, and no less cunning, opponent in the current game of poker over natural gas in Europe was sitting only a few seats away: Alexei Miller, the head of the Russian gas company Gazprom. On that same day, Europeans were growing increasingly indignant over the consequences of the latest natural gas dispute in the eastern part of the continent.
The dispute between Russia and Ukraine seems to have been resolved, but the question of blame remains. Did Moscow deliberately risk allowing half of Europe to go without heat merely to teach Kiev a lesson? Whoever is to blame it is clear that neither Brussels nor Berlin did much over the past few years to avert the crisis.
Oleg Dubina, 49, the chairman of the Ukrainian state-owned energy company Naftogaz, looks like he has been up all night. With deep rings under his hooded eyes, he sits in conference room ASP 5G3 at the European Parliament in Brussels. Dubina is considered the most adept crisis manager in the former Soviet republic.
When he flew to Brussels via Moscow last Thursday his most important, and no less cunning, opponent in the current game of poker over natural gas in Europe was sitting only a few seats away: Alexei Miller, the head of the Russian gas company Gazprom. On that same day, Europeans were growing increasingly indignant over the consequences of the latest natural gas dispute in the eastern part of the continent.
