DEALS GIVE RUSSIAN COMPANIES INFLUENCE OVER GEORGIA’S ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE Zeyno Baran: 8/18/03
The fragility of Georgia’s electric system became vivid on August 18, when a disruption to a transmission line switched off the entire country. Government officials promptly claimed sabotage. But opposition politicians in Tbilisi accuse President Eduard Shevardnadze of betraying citizens by allowing Russian energy companies potentially decisive influence over how Georgia delivers electricity. Russia’s electricity monopoly took controlling interest of Georgia’s power plants on August 6, weeks after a Moscow-based natural gas giant won the right to upgrade and manage pipelines through Georgia. Many observers suspect Shevardnadze of trading strategic assets in return for a promise that Russian players will back his political allies in a contentious upcoming parliamentary vote.
http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/business/articles/eav081803.shtml ---- KOCHARIAN’S MOSCOW VISIT UNDERSCORES STRENGTHENING ARMENIAN-RUSSIAN SECURITY COOPERATION Sergei Blagov: 1/21/03 Armenian President Robert Kocharian’s recent visit to Russia underscored the strengthening strategic ties between Yerevan and Moscow. This trend has prompted some regional analysts to raise questions about a possible shift in the strategic balance in the Caucasus.
http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav012103.shtml --- RUSSIA TIGHTENS GRIP ON ARMENIA WITH DEBT AGREEMENTS Emil Danielyan: 5/07/03 Pressed to settle its accumulating debt, Armenia is intent on transferring state-owned strategic assets to Russia. A series of equity-for-debt deals, agreed to in principle over the past few months, may place virtually the entire Armenian energy sector under Russian control. The swaps would provide Moscow with additional political leverage over its chief ally in the South Caucasus.
http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/business/articles/eav050703.shtml ---- Who Will Unlock Armenia First: Russia or US? Almost everybody in Armenia has been talking recently about the possible reopening of the country's borders. Armenian Minister for Transport and Communication Andranik Manukian is now busy trying to re-establish train services to Georgia and Turkey and is offering Azerbaijan and Georgia help in transporting goods across Armenia in future. The country has been practically landlocked for over ten years: the war in Abkhazia brought the closure of the railway line to Russia; then Turkey accused Armenia of annexing Azerbaijani territory during the Karabakh war and closed its border with the small republic.
http://www.rosbaltnews.com/2003/08/25/63764.html ---- Russia gains strategic air base in Central Asia
An agreement on opening a Russian air base in the town of Kant (Kyrgyzstan) was signed by the countries defence ministers in the presence of their presidents on Monday. President Vladimir Putin hailed the move saying that the agreement is ''a first step…it puts our military presence in Kyrgyzstan on a legal footing''.
http://www.gazeta.ru/2003/09/22/Russiagainss.shtml --- RUSSIAN MOVES IN CAUCASUS ENERGY AND POWER SECTORS COULD HAVE GEOPOLITICAL IMPACT Haroutiun Khachatrian: 9/25/03 An acquisition binge has put a Russian company in position to dominate potential Caucasus power exports. At the same time, the business moves can enhance the Kremlin’s ability to project its political power in the region. The Russian expansion into the Caucasus, led by the state-controlled electric company RAO Unified Energy Systems (UES), has accelerated in recent months. Of late, the chief acquisition target has been Armenia. Two recent debt-for-equity swaps left nearly a 50 percent stake in Armenia’s electricity generation capacity in Russian hands. Among the entities now under Russian corporate control are the 1100-megawatt Hrazdan thermal power plant and six hydropower stations, totaling 556 megawatts, on the so-called Sevan-Hrazdan cascade.
http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/business/articles/eav092503.shtml ---- Chubais Spells out Napoleonic Vision for Russian Energy ULYANOVSK, Russia--It was likely to be a week for grand visions, with the presidents of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan meeting in Yalta to take a further step toward establishing a “two-speed” Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The four will, they said, create a “united economic space” in which tariffs would be unified and the flow of labor and capital made easier. But if anything, that ambition was eclipsed by the vision outlined by Unified Energy Systems (UES), Russia’s monopoly electricity generator and distributor. In the Yalta summit, there were already signs of reluctance, with Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma making it plain that the CIS was a second choice. "Better an egg today than a hen tomorrow," he commented, after saying that "the European market is closed for us."
http://www.tol.cz/look/TOLnew/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=50&NrSection=6&NrArticle=10700&ST1=body&ST_T1=wir&ST_PS1=5&ST_AS1=0&ST_LS1=0&ST_max=1 ---- Dead on Arrival Ukraine has finally been dragged, kicking and screaming, into a union of sorts with Russia. Alarming as that is in theory, there isn’t much to fret about in practice. by Ivan Khokhotva READING, United Kingdom--The art of sitting on the fence is something Kiev diplomats have mastered to perfection. After 12 years of going it alone, Ukraine is the only post-Soviet country still decidedly unsure as to where exactly it is heading. With the Balts voting to join the EU, dictatorial and energy-rich Turkmenistan blithely aloof, and the rest of the former Soviet Union firmly, if unhappily in the Russian orbit, Ukraine alone has contrived to keep all options open.
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