ガス・パイプラインからみたウクライナ・ロシア関係―相互依存か従属か―

抄録

Since independence, Ukraine has heavily relied on Russian gas. Many argue that Ukraine's energy dependency will affect Ukraine's security policy and will lead Ukraine to Russian satellite state (so-called “Second Belarus”) . They describe Ukraine-Russian relation as zero-sum games: Russia is an aggressive imperialistic state and Ukraine has less chance to counter this measure. However, many ignore that Russia also depends on Ukraine's gas pipeline. Without Ukraine, Russia cannot export her energy to European market. It seems that both countries have vulnerability to each other. In this paper, the possibility of interdependency between Ukraine and Russia will be discussed.
Gazprom, the Russian gas giant, monopolizes the gas supply to Ukraine. Therefore, Ukraine has tried diversifying energy resources. Besides that, Ukraine has huge gas debts and its sum increases every moment. Gazprom demands to compensate for Ukraine's debts with Ukrainian strategic company's share such as gas pipeline systems. On the other hand, Russia also has vulnerability to Ukraine. 90% of Russian exported gas goes through Ukrainian territory. Ukraine controls tariff and sometimes illegally siphons off of Russian gas transiting Ukrainian territory. Therefore, Russia had no way but to agree with the debt-restructuring plan, which gave advantage to Ukraine.
Both countries try to decrease their own vulnerabilities. Ukraine seeks alternative energy suppliers. Recently, Ukraine is building a pipeline to import Caspian oil. Due to financial problems, this route is so far incomplete. As for importing Turkmenistan gas, Ukraine has to pay transit fee to Russia. It is obvious that Turkmenistan gas does not contribute to decrease dependency on Russia. Russia also plans to build alternative gas pipelines, which bypass Ukraine. But these routes will not run for the next 10-15 years due to financial and technical problems.
As discussed above, both countries are not successful seeking alternatives. For them, the most mutual benefited plan is further using existing pipeline. Then Ukraine could receive the transit fee, Russia saves huge investment capital (or save expensive transit fee for using the newly constructed pipeline) . However, the following problems must be resolved. First, Ukraine has to show her plan to clear huge gas debts. Under recent financial constraints, Ukraine has limited ways to clear debts such as cash emission, asking Russia to reconstruct debts, and selling (or leasing) pipeline systems. Second, Ukraine has to resolve “illegal siphon off”. Russia should ask Ukraine's guarantee or control the rights of pipeline. Under these circumstances, most controversial plan is selling the share of pipeline (wholly or partially) . Its merits are following: clear Ukraine's gas debts, attract Russian capital to renovate pipeline systems, and further transit Russian gas. However, there is a large opinion that joining Russian capital to Ukrainian energy sector should be dangerous to Ukraine's national security. They fear that Ukraine might completely lose the playing card. Since Western investors hesitate to invest in Ukraine, Russian capital is the only investor. Whether Russian or Westerner, the good investor for Ukraine is one who invests well in Ukraine. The worst scenario is that both sides increase suspicion to each other, Russia concentrates building up her alternative pipeline projects and abandons transiting through Ukrainian route. If both sides understand well their mutual benefits, then there should be interdependency between the two countries.