I have not added anything on this important subject, as my earlier posting in December said more or less all I have to say on it.

This time the Russians have played hardball, actually letting people all over the place get very cold by turning off gas supplies.

The accounting arrangements for gas and other energy supplies as between Ukraine and Russia are likely to be pretty impenetrable – it suits many people to keep it that way.

So to some extent this gas drama is simply different factions of post-Soviet Energy Oligarchs thumping each other for passing amusement, with the general public as collateral damage.

That said, I wonder whether Russia will regret making this move?

Ukrainians who otherwise might have inclined towards the Moscow view of the post-Soviet space must be unimpressed at the fact that Moscow turned off their gas tap.  

And the arrival of EU experts to monitor the flow of supplies – ostensibly to check that neither Russia nor Ukraine is cheating – gives Western standards new foot-holds and insight deep in former Soviet power arrangements.

A good example of where the bland, inoffensive, soft power EU really is more effective than the sum of its parts? Hard to imagine either Russians or Ukrainians accepting eg German or French or Austrian monitors in their national capacities?

Exporting something like reasonable and transparent arrangements back up Europe’s energy pipelines has been a major objective for Western policy since the Cold War ended. Will we be able to use this new development to make a new sustained push in this direction?

If so, excellent.

Update: Or not?