Russia's Great Gas Game
The primary goal of Russian gas policy isn’t economic, but political, namely to further the aim of revising the post-Soviet order in Europe – a quest that is directed mainly at Ukraine. De-regulating the EU gas market and reducing Russia's importance as a transit country for ex-Soviet producers would hold that ambition in check.
BERLIN – Russia and the European Union are geopolitical neighbors. Whether or not their relationship is in fact neighborly, rather than tense and confrontational, is of critical importance to both.