If Viktor Yanukovich wins the upcoming revote, competition will come to an edge between Ukrainian financial-industrial groups friendly to him, and Russia's business. Take Rinat Akhmetov, boss of the most affluent and influential of Donetsk-based groups. Last summer, he bought up Ukraine's largest steelworks, Krivorozhstal, after he pushed aside Russia's Severstal-though that its auction bid surpassed his own 1.5-fold. The Kiev financial-industrial group, strong in Ukraine's petroleum procession, initially sided with Yanukovich.
Whoever wins the presidential race, his supporters in the business world will promptly and eagerly redistribute property and spheres of influence. That is beyond doubt. Yushchenko, for one, has said even now that he badly dislikes the story of Krivorozhstal sale-so the steel company may eventually get into Russian hands.
True, the opposition leader has a Westernizer's reputation. That does not imply, however, that he will spearhead his policies against Russian business interests in his country. Ukraine can't do without Russian capital investment, and has no alternative to it. It is not Westerners who rival Russians in Ukraine but local moneybags who have come to the corridors of power.
Certain hazards are, surely, in store for Russia with Yushchenko for Ukraine's President. Private projects run no risk at all, unlike government strategies. Here, fuel and energy exports are the most vulnerable.
Running considerable danger is a blueprinted gas-piping consortium of Russia, Ukraine and Germany. As pessimists see the matter, Ukraine will certainly bid for its control block if Yushchenko wins. Russia will never put up with the prospect. But then, if Yanukovich takes the upper hand, he, too, will have opposition opinions to reckon with on such matters as that. Besides, there is a draft political reform to get through Ukraine's parliament. When passed, it will drastically reduce the President's part in settling economic issues. Russia will be much harder put negotiating with the diverse political forces that make a Ukrainian parliamentary majority, now that the reform promises them the right to form the Cabinet.
With all that, Moscow has no big reason to gamble on Yanukovich. If a Yushchenko-led Ukraine builds up its economic partnership with Russia, closer ties will sooner or later smooth out whatever political roughness there is.
Possibly, Ukraine's Odessa-Brody petroleum mainline has come to Russians as decisive argument in Yanukovich's favor. Laid by the Ukrtransnafta government company, the line was initially intended to pipe light oil from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan to Europe, mainly Germany. If that became true, the arrangement would bury Russian oil transport monopoly in the entire post-Soviet area, just as Russia's hopes to make Ukraine's closest and most influential partner. That arrangement meets Europe's vital interests, as it is anxious to reduce its dependence on Russian petroleum. More than that, Moscow suspects the West of plotting a sanitary cordon of Russia's neighbor countries. Here, the European Union and the U.S. share strategic goals-suffice it to say that America's ChevronTexaco major is operator of several Caspian oilfields.
The Odessa-Brody line was commissioned, 2002, together with the Yuzhny sea terminal to serve it. The line stood idle for longer than a year-Caspian oil was not enough to fill it. Despite all that, the Chevron Texaco proposed, last fall, carrying petroleum from its fields in Kazakhstan to Europe through Odessa-Brody. Ukraine, however, found the terms unfavorable, so the deal flopped. The Russian-British TNK-BP (Tyumen Petroleum Company/British Petroleum) had better luck. It made a contract for a reverse use of the line to carry Russian oil to Odessa and from there, on to Europe by sea.
US energy strategies boil down to diversifying fuel transport routes-in particular, through undermining Russia's monopoly in the post-Soviet area. One of the key parts in the planned endeavors belongs to Ukraine.
That is, to all appearances, where the economic reason lies for the current Russia-West confrontation over stormy Ukrainian developments.
