Russia Halts Gas Supplies to Ukraine

After weeks of worthless foreplay whose outcome was known from the beginning despite just as worthless EU middleman Oettinger assuring everyone a deal was imminent any second now, overnight we got the long-anticipated mutual defection outcome and - as we warned - negotiations between Gazprom and Ukraine/EU fell apart with the Russian energy giant halting supplies to Ukraine unless Kiev prepays any and all gas deliveries from now on. Gazprom said it hadn't received payment for a debt it put at $4.458 billion by the Monday deadline it had set. "Ukraine will receive gas only in the amounts it has paid for," Gazprom said.

The reason for the collapse in talks: Kiev wants to pay $268.5 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas - the price it had been offered when Yanukovich was in power - but, in a compromise last week, said it would agree to pay $326 for an interim period until a lasting deal was reached. Moscow had sought to keep the price at the 2009 contract level of $485 per 1,000 cubic meters, but had offered to waive an export duty, bringing down prices by about one-fifth to $385, which brings it broadly into line with what Russia charges other European countries.

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