U.S. Embassy cables released by the WikiLeaks web site show that the U.S. government believed the 2009 gas crisis with Ukraine was deliberately exacerbated by Russia to promote alternative gas supply routes to Europe.
In a cable from January 2009 released Sunday, it is stated that the Nord Stream and South Stream gas pipelines were perceived as beneficiaries if Ukraine could be portrayed as an unreliable energy partner for the European Union.
The cable also cited high levels of personal animosity between Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and then-Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko as a factor, but concluded that the root cause of the dispute was an "inefficient, corrupt, nontransparent supplier and an equally inefficient, corrupt and nontransparent transit system."
(MT)
