Ukraine and Gazprom Seal a Deal

Geoff Smith of Renaissance Capital in Kiev is optimistic about the new natural gas deal: “This is a big improvement for both Gazprom and Ukraine. Commonsense prevailed. Any solution that avoids a disruption of European supplies is positive, but this appears to suggest that relations between the two in the future will be much more transparent than they have been.” Any move to kick the shady middlemen at RosUkrEnergo to the curb is indeed a move toward transparency. There’s much more news to read about the deal here, here, and here, but I don’t think anyone has tried to connect the arrest of mobster Semyon Mogilevich to the fall of RosUkrEnergo. Or perhaps Gazprom allowed this deal to go through because of Dmytro Firtash’s women troubles.