"GAS WARS" OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION AND UKRAINE IN 2006 AND 2009: VISIONS OF UKRAINIAN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL OPINION

Abstract

The article is specifically concerned with the visions of Ukrainian socio-political opinion on the gas wars of 2006 and 2009 that had emerged between the Russian Federation (RF) and Ukraine. The author investigated the approaches of representatives of the political, media, expert circles to provide an overview of this issue, as well as the results of sociological monitoring, which generally reflect the estimates of the average population. It has been argued that starting with a seemingly purely economic proposal to raise gas prices for Ukraine to a market level, Russia actually had a political goal - to punish Kyiv for delaying negotiations on the creation of a consortium with the Russians for the development of the Ukrainian gas transportation system and the pro-European course launched by the «orange team» and to discredit the Ukrainian side as a transit country to attract the attention of Europeans to several Russian gas pipeline construction projects to bypass Ukraine, which would become an alternative or even a replacement for the Ukrainian one. The results of the study suggest that, although the gas wars of 2006 and 2009 demonstrated the readiness of the Russian Federation to use its energy resources to achieve geopolitical aims, in Ukraine, this crisis was partly considered in the context of internal political struggle. Despite the judgment of Russia's non-market actions and the beginning of diversification of the Ukrainian energy system, mostly public discussion was unfolded around criticism, foremost, of the Ukrainian authorities, whose ineffective efforts, they say, were used by Russian Federation. Paradoxically, even the average population was to blame for the fuel crisis, if not exclusively official Kyiv, then both sides, rarely - only Russia. Keywords: "gas wars" 2006 and 2009, Ukrainian socio-political thought, Russian Federation, Ukraine.