Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Russian Power Monopoly Seeks Bulgarian Facilities

This may not seem pertinent at first glance but it is very much a part of ‘Unrestricted Warfare’.

The new Russian imperialist agenda is based on electricity - electricity supply being vital for the people to have a normal life. The political implications of the UES’s economic expansion are obvious. I have been collecting data on RAO Unified Energy System's (UES), Anatoly Chubais, damn can this guy move, very aggressive.

UES, under CEO Anatoly Chubais' "liberal imperialism" slogan, has been seeking to recreate Russia's monopoly on electricity production and distribution in former Soviet space.

UES has already bought stakes in electricity assets in Armenia, Kazakhstan and Georgia, and Chubais has said he wants to move into Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia. The power monopoly is also in talks to rent an international power grid that connects Armenia, Georgia, Iran and Turkey.

With U.S.-dominated NATO moving troops to Russia's borders, Moscow is countering by taking control of key infrastructure assets.

"Former Soviet states can't afford to ignore Russia's wishes," Weafer said. "At the end of the day, Russia can just turn the lights off. You can't run an electricity cable from Washington."

-Am

Russian Power Monopoly Seeks Bulgarian Facilities


Business: 25 May 2004, Tuesday.
Russia's power monopoly Unified Energy System (UES) is keen on acquiring power facilities in Eastern Europe, including Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia.

At the end of September last year the company's Board of Directors has greenlighted its participation in the tender for Bulgaria's seven electricity distribution companies.

According to UES executive board member Andrei Rappoport, the UES is holding a number of negotiations on the possibility of obtaining power assets in those Eastern European countries.

However he skipped to name the facilities of interest to Russia's power monopoly, pointing out that the projects are still "in the pipeline".

UES is currently also in negotiations over the power assets purchase in Turkey, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Moldova. Last year UES already bought power facilities in Georgia for USD 25 M, while recent audit estimated their current value at USD 72 M.

http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=35027







Reference:

RUSSIA SEEKS TO USE ENERGY ABUNDANCE TO INCREASE POLITICAL LEVERAGE
Igor Torbakov: 11/19/03

At the end of the 19th century, Tsar Alexander III liked to say that Romanov Empire had only two true allies – the Russian army and navy. At the outset of the 21st century, as Moscow strives to reassert its influence across the post-Soviet space, Kremlin officials might say they rely on just one trustworthy ally – Russia’s vast energy resources.

Russian business executives are acting as shock troops in the Kremlin’s latest bid to reestablish its controlling influence over former Soviet republics, confirming that economic considerations are exerting increasing influence over the policy-making establishment in Russia. The South Caucasus has emerged as the proving ground for a new Kremlin strategy that seeks to utilize Russia’s energy abundance to increase its leverage over countries in the "near abroad." If successful in the Caucasus, leaders of Russia’s economic and political elite have already indicated they intend to use the strategy to increase Russian influence in other regions, including Central Asia and Ukraine.

Russia’s electricity giant – RAO Unified Energy Systems (UES), in which the government has a controlling share -- has led the Russian charge so far in the Caucasus, acquiring large stakes in energy ventures in both Armenia and Georgia. It also has announced plans to export energy to Turkey and Azerbaijan. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The company’s CEO, Anatoly Chubais has been a leading advocate of the establishment of a Moscow-dominated "liberal empire" in Eurasia. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

On October 22, Chubais visited Armenia to finalize the deal with Yerevan. The fact that Chubais -- who holds no official post in the Russian government, but who is a leader of a Russian political party – met with Armenia’s top leaders, namely President Robert Kocharian and Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisian, underscores the political dimension of Russia’s aggressive move into the Armenian energy market.

Talking to journalists in Yerevan, Chubais divulged some details of UES’s blueprint for future expansion. According to the Itar-TASS news agency, Chubais said that Armenia would soon be incorporated into a Russia-led energy-supply network comprising 10 former Soviet republics, including Georgia and Azerbaijan. He added that UES, which currently controls 80 per cent of Armenia’s power-generating capacity, wants to lease and repair high-voltage transmission lines leading from Armenia to Azerbaijan and Turkey. The aim would be for UES to export power to those two countries, despite the fact that both Baku and Ankara have antagonistic relationships with Yerevan. Chubais suggested that "political problems" should not preclude such exports, going on to hint that UES would not have difficulty in obtaining Azerbaijan’s agreement to the Russian company’s energy export plan.

Chubais indicated the Caucasus offers an ideal "bridgehead" for UES’s expansion into Turkey. He called Turkish market "fantastically attractive" in terms of wholesale prices for energy and development prospects. "The market is growing, promising a number of big projects, including some in the aluminum sector and other power-consuming industries," RIA-Novosti quoted Chubais as saying.

Russia’s near total control of Armenia’s energy market has caused understandable uneasiness among experts at some international financial institutions. The transfer to UES of more Armenian energy facilities would be "undesirable," World Bank official Gevorg Sargsian told RFE/RL’s Yerevan bureau on October 28. Sargsian stressed that "we have nothing against UES or any other foreign company," but the bank would prefer that other owners acquire power facilities that have yet to be privatized.

The political implications of the UES’s economic expansion are obvious. "Since we are not talking about the sale of cold drinks – electricity supply being vital for the people to have a normal life – Moscow is set to gain control over key economic sectors [in Armenia and Georgia], and over their overall existence in general," political analyst Yevgenii Arsyukhin wrote recently in the Russian government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta.

Chubais publicly denies that his company seeks political gains. "We do economics, not politics," Chubais said in an interview with the Russkii Kur’er newspaper. However, talking to the newsmen after a recent session of the CIS Council on Electric Energy, Chubais offered blunt comments on the need to restore Russia’s undisputed supremacy in the post-Soviet Eurasia. "Russia should be strong. Period," he said. To shun a leadership role within the CIS, to try to "hide it," Chubais argued, would be tantamount to "hypocrisy."

All along the way during its acquisition binge, Russia’s political establishment has cheered UES. "Having once said that he is going to redraw the energy map of the world, Anatoly Chubais is steadily moving towards his objective," Anatoly Gordienko wrote in a commentary published in the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper. "After it suddenly set up shop in Georgia, UES is now taking under its wing neighboring Armenia, putting out feelers with the aim to privatize energy sector in Ukraine and seeking to carry out its blitz in the republics of Central Asia."

To those skeptics who question the feasibility of UES’s expansion scheme, Chubais invariably responds with the following: "Don’t worry, we have long hands."



Editor’s Note: Igor Torbakov is a freelance journalist and researcher who specializes in CIS political affairs. He holds an MA in History from Moscow State University and a PhD from the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. He was Research Scholar at the Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow; a Visiting Scholar at the Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington DC; a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University, New York; and a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University. He is now based in Istanbul, Turkey.

http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav111903.shtml