Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right

Original: Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right

Why has Russia's natural gas dispute with Ukraine stretched out so long?

A key reason is the subtext from Russia's side: an effort once and for all to tar and discredit much-detested neighbors who have become darlings of the West, and end the West's intrusion into Moscow's claimed sphere of influence.

Despite some self-inflicted damage, the gambit so far has been relatively successful.

In the fall, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his junior partner, President Dmitry Medvedev, managed through s as severely -- and perhaps permanently -- damaged. (And, not incidentally, the U.S. was revealed to be largely impotent in what it had hubristically claimed as a pro-Western new region.)

Now, Putin and Medvedev have in their sights another primary local irritant -- Ukraine and its independent-minded president, Viktor Yushchenko. In the latest part of this effort, the Russian leaders are trying to recruit Europe into a strategy of reducing their new dispute with Ukraine to this: Ukraine is a country-size thief.

On its face, what we have is a simple pricing dispute. Ukraine wants to pay close to today's price for its 2009 natural gas supplies, or about $180-$235 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas. But Russia wants Ukrain s-russias-medvedev">met with Eur