Russia yesterday hiked the price for natural gas to Ukraine sharply and threatened to reclaim billions in previous discounts, raising the heat on the cash-strapped fledgling government in Kiev, as Ukrainian police moved to disarm members of a radical nationalist group following a shooting spree in the capital.
Gazprom deputy chairman Alexei Miller yesterday said that Russia’s state-run natural gas giant has withdrawn the discount effected in December last year that put the price of gas at US$268.50 per 1,000m3 and reset the price at US$385.50 per 1,000m3 for the second quarter.
The discount was part of a financial lifeline Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych after his decision to ditch a pact with the EU in favor of closer ties to Moscow.
The move fueled three months of protests that led Yanukovych to flee to Russia in February.
In addition to the financial threat from Moscow, Kiev must deal with the radical nationalist groups that played a key role in the pro-Kremlin Yanukovych’s ouster, but have quickly fallen out with the new government.
Last week, one of the leaders of the most prominent radical group, the Right Sector, was shot dead while resisting police.
Right Sector members then besieged the parliament for several hours, breaking windows and demanding the resignation of Ukrainian Minister of the Interior Arsen Avakov. They lifted the blockade after lawmakers set up a panel to investigate the killing.
Late on Monday, a Right Sector member shot and wounded three people, including a deputy city mayor, outside a restaurant adjacent to Kiev’s Independence Square, triggering a standoff that lasted overnight.
Police responded by surrounding the Dnipro Hotel, which the Right Sector had commandeered as its headquarters, demanding that the radicals lay down their weapons and leave.
Avakov said that Right Sector members got into buses yesterday morning, leaving their weapons behind, and headed to a suburban camp under the escort of Security Service of Ukraine officers.
Parliament then voted to order police to disarm all illegal armed units. If police carry out the order, it would undermine Russia’s key argument in defending its annexation of Crimea: the allegation that the new Ukrainian government was kowtowing to nationalist radicals who threaten Russian speakers in the country’s southeast.
Citing the perceived threat from ultranationalists, Moscow has concentrated tens of thousands of troops along its border with Ukraine, sparking Western fears of an invasion. However, Russian Minister of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu yesterday reiterated that it has no intention to threaten Ukraine’s statehood.
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