Blockbuster news story of the day: a New York Times front-pager on what Vladimir Putin got when taking the Crimea: a Maine-sized chunk of the Black Sea so rich in oil and natural gas that it might turn out to be the equivalent of the North Sea in its energy heyday! That a) makes a lot more sense out of the Russian move in Crimea and b) may help explain why the invasion of eastern Ukraine is not actually on the Russian agenda. Given that Russia is already essentially a giant energy company, this really does make sense of why it absorbed an otherwise remarkably poor and forlorn place, all of which, previously, was simply put down to nationalism. Tom When Russia seized Crimea in March, it acquired not just the Crimean landmass but also a maritime zone more than three times its size with the rights to underwater resources potentially worth trillions of dollars. Russia portrayed the takeover as reclamation of its rightful territory, drawing no attention to the oil and gas rush that had recently been heating up in the Black Sea. But the move also extended Russia’s maritime boundaries, quietly giving Russia dominion over vast oil and gas reserves while dealing a crippling blow to Ukraine’s hopes for energy independence. Russia did so under an international accord that gives nations sovereignty over areas up to 230 miles from their shorelines. It had tried, unsuccessfully, to gain access to energy resources in the same territory in a pact with Ukraine less than two years earlier. “It’s a big deal, said Carol R. Saivetz, a Eurasian expert in the Security Studies Program of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It deprives Ukraine of the possibility of developing these resources and gives them to Russia. It makes Ukraine more vulnerable to Russian pressure.” nytimes/2014/05/18/world/europe/in-taking-crimea-putin-gains-a-sea-of-fuel-reserves.html
Posted on: Sun, 18 May 2014 14:38:36 +0000
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