Christian Science Monitor quotes Global Energy Center Nonresident Senior Fellows Ariel Cohen and Brenda Shaffer on the winter gas package between Russia and Ukraine to get natural gas to Europe this upcoming winter:
“Russia has a lot at stake,” says Ariel Cohen, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a think tank based in Washington. “It has an abundance of gas, it’s trying to keep its market share, and the conflict in Ukraine has the potential of deeply cutting Ukrainian purchases of Russian gas.”
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“Russia wants to remain a reliable supplier to the markets in the center of Europe,” says Brenda Shaffer, a specialist on energy and foreign policy at Georgetown University. “Until Moscow builds alternative gas supply pipelines, it will strive for the transit through Ukraine to Europe to be uninterrupted.”
In recent months, Russia again surpassed Norway as the number one supplier of natural gas to Europe, Dr. Shaffer points out.
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“Europe just wants everything to be calm on the eastern front; they don’t want Ukraine to freeze and they don’t want them to cut the flow of gas to Europe,” says Dr. Cohen.