Russian resources always come with price.
Every discount came with a sovereignty bill attached, paid in naval bases, foreign troops, rejected EU deals, and corrupted politics.
The most expensive gas Ukraine ever bought was the kind labeled “for brothers.”
January 1, 2025, 8:00 AM. The last molecule of Russian gas crosses Ukrainian territory under the expired transit deal.
On January 25, Zelenskyy announced Ukraine’s readiness to transport gas from Azerbaijan.
Gazprom now loses over $5 billion every year.
Gas consumption fell 41% by 2019 through efficiency upgrades. Domestic production pushed self-sufficiency past 70% by 2021.
Then Stockholm Arbitration delivered the knockout: Gazprom demanded $56 billion in penalties. The tribunal awarded Naftogaz $2.56 billion instead.
November 2015: Ukraine stops buying directly from Gazprom entirely.
Switches to reverse flow purchases from EU markets through Slovakia, Poland and Hungary.
European hub prices that ran cheaper than what Gazprom had been charging Kyiv directly.
Ukraine's annual gas import bill exploded from under $4b in 2005 to roughly $14b by 2011-2012.
Gas became the single biggest driver of Ukraine's trade deficit and the largest single import in the entire economy.
The cheap Russian gas was quietly bleeding the country dry.
Belarus paid $166/tcm.
Armenia paid $189/tcm.
The catch: Belarus had to sell 50% of its national pipeline company Beltransgaz to Gazprom for $2.5 billion. Cheap Russian gas existed.
The price tag was always your strategic independence.
Russian gas prices in 2013.
Ukraine: $430/tcm.
Germany: roughly $380.
France: under $400.
Austria: $397.
Ukraine sat directly on the pipeline as the transit country with the lowest possible delivery costs. It paid more than customers thousands of km further west.
She was exactly right. Four years later Russia used that very fleet as the core force to seize Crimea.
Then the Duma unanimously cancelled the Kharkiv Pact.
Russia kept the base, took the entire peninsula, and demanded Ukraine pay $485/tcm plus a $4.5 billion debt bill.
The Rada ratification vote was pure chaos.
Eggs flew at Speaker Lytvyn, who shielded himself with two umbrellas. Smoke bombs detonated. Deputies brawled openly.
The pact passed 236 to the minimum 226. Tymoshenko warned: “Sevastopol is the first step. The next will be Crimea.”
April 21, 2010. Yanukovych signs the Kharkiv Pact in eastern Ukraine. Russia keeps its Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol until 2042, with a 5-year extension option to 2047.
Ukraine gets $100 off per 1,000 cubic meters. Sovereignty literally traded for a discount coupon on gas.
Yulia Tymoshenko flies to Moscow and signs a 10-year deal with Putin.
Q1 2009 price: roughly $360/tcm. European netback formula tied to oil prices. Yanukovych later jailed Tymoshenko partially because if this deal. The political verdict was overturned after Maidan in 2014.
January 2009: round two, and far worse. Gazprom cuts Ukraine off again. Six days later they shut the entire pipeline system completely.
18 European countries lose gas in mid-winter. Bulgarians, Serbs and Bosnians cannot heat their homes.
The full cutoff lasts 13 brutal days.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called it out directly: “When you do it in the way that this was done, with an obviously political motive, of course it causes problems.”
Even Washington saw the pattern. Gas prices were rising every time Kyiv looked westward.
January 1, 2006, 10:00 AM Moscow time: Gazprom cuts the pressure.
Austria, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Romania all feel it within hours. Europe gets its first real taste of what Russian energy coercion looks like in mid-winter.
The continent panics.
December 2005: Putin demands Ukraine jump from $50 to $230/tcm.
A 360% hike overnight. He frames it as moving to “market prices.” His own economic adviser Andrei Illarionov resigns rather than defend it, calling the move politically motivated.
Even insiders saw the truth.
From 2002 to 2005 Ukraine paid a fixed $50/tcm under a contract that explicitly said “not subject to change until 2009.”
Then the Orange Revolution swept pro-Western Yushchenko into power in late 2004.
Suddenly the unchangeable contract desperately needed changing.
The 1990s were chaos. Barter deals, unpaid bills, constant renegotiations. By 1998 Ukraine owed Gazprom $2.8 billion.
Russia kept the relationship deliberately messy. Dependency was the actual product Moscow was selling. The gas was just the delivery mechanism.
Ukraine never received cheap gas from Russia.
For most of the post-Soviet era, Kyiv paid prices at or above what Western European nations paid, even though it sat directly on the pipeline and provided the transit corridor that made Russia's gas empire possible🧵
Worst anecdote ever.
Four years revealed Russia as a disgraceful, hollow colossus on clay feet.
Four year showed the extraordinary courage of ordinary Ukrainians fighting for the right to be Ukrainian.
Four years exposed corrupt Western elites and the sincerity of people who truly stand with us.
I’ll be honest, February was tough for us, especially with high electricity bills and power outages.
We’re currently waiting for components and in the meantime developing new products for Ukrainian defenders.
Your support truly means a lot 🤗
PayPal: hello@syaivo.tech
Our sky is full of Russian drones and missiles. I’m not sure if we can call it closed.
Ukrainians recall asking NATO to close the sky over Ukraine with laughter and embarrassment.
In a viral Instagram video, iamdonskikh says he feels ashamed for once asking NATO to protect Ukraine from Russians. In the comments, many share the same feeling.
Why is that?
On the morning of February 18, Russians destroyed a 1957 locomotive and an antique carriage with a drone strike.
I saw that beautiful train in Haivoron several months ago. It’s used only for celebrations.
Just an ordinary Russian desire to destroy and kill. Fucking barbarians.
Whatever IOC wanted to do for their Russian patrons it didn’t work.
Vladyslav Heraskevych received much more than a medal. He is a hero, he is being supported by the most wonderful people.
Money will not help hide the Russian crimes.
I want elections. I think most Ukrainians want elections. But they were stolen from us. Not by Zelensky, but by the Russians. And instead stopping the Russian terrorist regime, Ukraine is being forced to put its citizens at risk and hold elections under fire.
Activity during power outages #201
Trust me, it’ll work this time.
Just one more call.
One more “привет, как дела?”
One more phone call explaining why invading neighbors is actually bad.
One of best gifts for Putin is Western leaders trying to talk to him.
Empty negotiations only legitimize a terrorist maniac, buy him time, and let him dictate terms.
Keep negotiating and talks will turn to handing EU territory to Russia.
Switzerland has become a symbol of moral collapse. Jailing citizens for defending Ukraine while officials honor Russia’s most notorious thieves.
Do these idiot politicians not grasp that if Russia reaches Europe, they will face basements, terror, and confiscation of everything?
