LONDON -- What did the Russians hope to achieve? Their threat two weeks ago, now happily averted, to cut off natural gas supplies to Ukraine unless it immediately paid four times the current contract price was bound from the start to backfire.
For one thing, it was a threat that could not be carried out. Ninety percent of the gas that Russia supplies to Western Europe under contract (which is about a quarter of Western Europe's daily consumption) passes through pipelines across Ukrainian territory.
All the Ukrainians had to do, if Russia cut supplies, was turn a couple of valves and divert gas intended for the West to their own consumers, claiming that it was theirs by right.