MOSCOW – Russia cut off all gas supplies to Europe through Ukraine on Wednesday, playing hardball in a weeklong standoff that has left more than a dozen countries struggling to cope with dwindling energy supplies in the depths of winter.

The U.S. put the blame squarely on Russia, accusing Moscow of using its energy resources to threaten its neighbors.

But Prime Minister Vladimir Putin endorsed the move, even as factories shut down in eastern Europe, schools closed and tens of thousands of people scrambled to find other ways of keeping warm.

Insisting that Ukraine was responsible for the crisis, Putin appeared determined to force Kiev to back down and accept increased prices for natural gas. The two sides were to meet Thursday in the first face-to-face talks since negotiations broke down on New Year’s Eve.

The effects of the gas cutoff reverberated across the continent, with Bulgaria, the EU’s poorest member, among the worst hit. Croatia declared a state of emergency and Hungary instituted gas rationing for industries. The situation in Bosnia was so dire that woodcutters revved up their chain saws to cut wood for fireplaces.

“It is a shame that in the last two decades our rulers did not look for alternative sources of energy supplies. It’s again up to Moscow,” retired teacher Anelia Petrova said in Sofia, the Bulgarian capital.

Hundreds stormed shops in Sofia looking for electric heaters. Tsvyatko Peev got the last one in a downtown shop.

“I’m glad I got one, although I fear that the additional electricity costs will ruin the family budget,” Peev said.

In Hungary, voluntary rationing for the country’s largest consumers went into immediate effect.

Japanese carmaker Suzuki closed its plant in the northern city of Esztergom, while a brick factory belonging to Austria’s Wienerberger, the world’s largest brick manufacturer, in the eastern city of Bekescsaba and a tire factory in Racalmas, central Hungary, owned by South Korea’s Hankook also shut down due to gas shortages.

The Hungarian subsidiary of General Electric and famed salami maker Pick were among the companies cutting output.

The EU accused both Russia and Ukraine of using consumers as pawns in their dispute.

“It is unacceptable that the EU gas supply security is taken hostage to negotiations between Russia and Ukraine,” EU spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen said.

In Washington, U.S. officials criticized Russia for the energy crisis.

“Cutting off these supplies during winter to a vulnerable population is just something that is unacceptable to us,” State Department spokesman Robert Wood said.

U.S. national security adviser Stephen Hadley warned Moscow if it continues to threaten its neighbors and manipulate their access to energy it will “compromise any aspirations for greater global influence.”

Russia supplies one-quarter of Europe’s natural gas, and about 80 percent of that is shipped through pipelines crossing Ukraine. Other smaller pipelines run through Belarus and Turkey.

Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Turkey all reported a halt in Russian gas shipments by Wednesday. Others — including Austria, France, Germany, Hungary and Poland — reported substantial drops in supplies.

Russia’s gas monopoly Gazprom stopped all gas shipments to Ukraine on Jan. 1 after the two countries failed to agree on prices and transit fees for 2009, but kept supplies flowing to Europe over Ukraine’s pipelines.

Russia reduced supplies Tuesday, accusing Ukraine of siphoning off gas meant for Europe. But Putin ordered Gazprom to stop all shipments Wednesday.

“This should be done publicly and in the presence of international observers,” he told Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller.

EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso pressed Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Yulia Tymoshenko for a quick resolution to the standoff.

“If this matter is not solved, it will raise very serious doubts about the reliability of Russia as a supplier of gas to Europe and Ukraine as a transit country,” Barroso said.

He said both countries agreed Wednesday to accept international monitors that could verify the flow of gas once it resumes.

Andrew Neff, an energy analyst with Global Insight, said Gazprom’s cutoff aimed to pressure Ukraine to settle quickly.

“While the Russian gas giant risks further sullying its already-poor reputation in Europe with its tactics, Gazprom is effectively seeking to force this dispute to an end sooner rather than later,” he wrote in an analysis.

Talks had been expected Thursday in Moscow, but Ukraine said it was sending its delegation instead to Brussels, where Gazprom’s Miller is to speak before the European Parliament.

In 2008, Russia charged Ukraine about half what it charged its European customers for gas — a Soviet-era practice it has long sought to change. Ukraine, however, says if it pays more for natural gas, Russia should pay more for shipping that gas across Ukraine.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko on Wednesday that Moscow would insist that Kiev pay European prices “without discount.” Medvedev also demanded full payment of Ukraine’s $600 million debt to Gazprom, which Ukraine has said it will not pay until the issue is settled in arbitration courts.

Ukraine, which has a vast underground storage system full of natural gas, says it can weather the dispute until early April.

Gazprom, however, is losing substantial income during a peak season for gas consumption. It also will soon see an excess of gas in its system, which will create a costly storage problem.

SOURCE: YAHOO!NEWS

At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the Great War ends. At 5 a.m. that morning, Germany, bereft of manpower and supplies and faced with imminent invasion, signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiégne, France. The First World War left nine million soldiers dead and 21 million wounded, with Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, France, and Great Britain each losing nearly a million or more lives. In addition, at least five million civilians died from disease, starvation, or exposure.

On June 28, 1914, in an event that is widely regarded as sparking the outbreak of World War I, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, was shot to death with his wife by Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Ferdinand had been inspecting his uncle’s imperial armed forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, despite the threat of Serbian nationalists who wanted these Austro-Hungarian possessions to join newly independent Serbia. Austria-Hungary blamed the Serbian government for the attack and hoped to use the incident as justification for settling the problem of Slavic nationalism once and for all. However, as Russia supported Serbia, an Austro-Hungarian declaration of war was delayed until its leaders received assurances from German leader Kaiser Wilhelm II that Germany would support their cause in the event of a Russian intervention.

On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the tenuous peace between Europe’s great powers collapsed. On July 29, Austro-Hungarian forces began to shell the Serbian capital, Belgrade, and Russia, Serbia’s ally, ordered a troop mobilization against Austria-Hungary. France, allied with Russia, began to mobilize on August 1. France and Germany declared war against each other on August 3. After crossing through neutral Luxembourg, the German army invaded Belgium on the night of August 3-4, prompting Great Britain, Belgium’s ally, to declare war against Germany.

For the most part, the people of Europe greeted the outbreak of war with jubilation. Most patriotically assumed that their country would be victorious within months. Of the initial belligerents, Germany was most prepared for the outbreak of hostilities, and its military leaders had formatted a sophisticated military strategy known as the “Schlieffen Plan,” which envisioned the conquest of France through a great arcing offensive through Belgium and into northern France. Russia, slow to mobilize, was to be kept occupied by Austro-Hungarian forces while Germany attacked France.

The Schlieffen Plan was nearly successful, but in early September the French rallied and halted the German advance at the bloody Battle of the Marne near Paris. By the end of 1914, well over a million soldiers of various nationalities had been killed on the battlefields of Europe, and neither for the Allies nor the Central Powers was a final victory in sight. On the western front–the battle line that stretched across northern France and Belgium–the combatants settled down in the trenches for a terrible war of attrition.

In 1915, the Allies attempted to break the stalemate with an amphibious invasion of Turkey, which had joined the Central Powers in October 1914, but after heavy bloodshed the Allies were forced to retreat in early 1916. The year 1916 saw great offensives by Germany and Britain along the western front, but neither side accomplished a decisive victory. In the east, Germany was more successful, and the disorganized Russian army suffered terrible losses, spurring the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in 1917. By the end of 1917, the Bolsheviks had seized power in Russia and immediately set about negotiating peace with Germany. In 1918, the infusion of American troops and resources into the western front finally tipped the scale in the Allies’ favor. Germany signed an armistice agreement with the Allies on November 11, 1918.

World War I was known as the “war to end all wars” because of the great slaughter and destruction it caused. Unfortunately, the peace treaty that officially ended the conflict–the Treaty of Versailles of 1919–forced punitive terms on Germany that destabilized Europe and laid the groundwork for World War II.

HISTORY.COM
Date: 2008-11-11