 Vladimir Putin has clearly taken Russia on a course of confrontation with the west, trying to assert the country's former power in all spheres it can. Its support of Iran and Syria in the Middle East are certainly causes of concern. The country, with its vast energy reserves and an economy rebounding aided by increasing oil prices, is eager to use energy supplies as a lever for increased influence.
The latest energy row with Ukraine appears on the surface to be pure revenge politics, but I don't doubt that Russia actually plans to use this to force some political concessions. Now Putin cannot afford an politically embarrassing climbdown, and it is difficult to predict where this will end. EU countries are already reporting a fall in gas supply in the pipelines that pass through Ukraine, and Russia accuses its neighbour of stealing gas intended for the EU. Ukraine, while insisting it has a right to 15% of the gas as payment for transit, it says it has not asserted this right.
The Ukrainian crisis erupted after Gazprom announced it was quadrupling the price of its gas supplies from $50 to $230 per 1,000 cubic metres.
Ukraine rejected the increase, saying it was prepared to pay a higher price but not on that scale.
Rhetorically, Russia insist this is a purely commercial conflict, with Russian state monopoly Gazprom saying it wants "market prices" for the gas. That is a truth with a lot of modifications. Recently, Belarus, undemocratic and friendly to Russia, negotiated $47 per cubic meter, and Georgia and Armenia have deals for around $110. In light of this, a demand for $230 appears to be rather steep. Another sign that Russia is playing hardball is that Gazprom has bought up Turkmen gas supplies in an apparent attempt to limit Viktor Yushchenko's options.
Ukraine claims it has a binding contract with Russia for supplies until 2009, at old prices.
Another, lesser known conflict certainly strengthens the impression that Russia is playing hardball and are engaging in revenge politics. When the Russian fishing vessel Electron 'kidnapped' two Norwegian fisheries inspectors as it escaped from Norway's coast guard, there was much rage in Russia that Norway insisted on enforcing its fisheries restrictions in the Svalbard (Spitsbergen) zone.
The revenge was swift. Russia's food safety authorities suddenly claimed to have found extreme content of cadmium and lead in Norwegian fresh farmed salmon, and instituted a total ban on imports. Russia is Norway's largest customer of seafood products. The claims were beyond sane in every way, so obviously designed to send a 'signal', as they say, while leaving no reasonable way to believe there was any actual truth in the claims. Norway's food safety authorities not only found the fish perfectly safe, but found it impossible, no matter how much heavy metals they subjected salmon to in tests (don't tell PETA), to duplicate the absurd values the Russians claimed were present. Also, Singapore, alerted by the row, decided to test Norwegian salmon and found it totally safe.
In addition to the recent Electron-conflict, Norway has a 35-year unresolved conflict with Russia over the maritime borders in the Barents Sea, and a new round of negotiations are starting now. Russia is playing hardball, because it can, and the response from Norway's 'red-green' government has so far been pitiful in its passivity.
I see these two conflicts as part of the same pattern.
Russia is clearly trying to break up the EU alliance by playing one country off against the other. Former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder controversially went directly to a job as board chairman for a Russian-German pipeline project where Gazprom holds a 51% stake, a pipeline he worked hard to realise while in office. Conveniently, the planned pipeline bypasses Poland and other eastern-European countries to deliver Russian gas directly to Germany. With EU in a record-weak state politically, after the constitution fiasco, Russia will probably find it very easy to play old KGB tricks in Europe.
Unfortunately, I don't need a crystal ball to predict an escalation of such conflicts between Russia and other European countries in 2006. The United States will also find its policies, especially in the Middle East and the Caucasus region, sabotaged by Putin's expansionist policies.
Update: A commenter made me aware of this development, which underscores my point:
Russia suspends import of meat production, which is delivered to Russia via territory of Ukraine.
As reported in Russian agricultural inspectors, it is connected with serious violations of supply rules and Russian veterinary requirements.
Similar pattern.
11:26:38 PM 
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