Russia electricity holding could enter Afghanistan – Chubais
The new Russian imperialist agenda is based on electricity - electricity supply being vital for the people to have a normal life.
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." #msg-2850036
Russia uses energy abundance to increase political leverage.
What is interesting about this text is that Russia may be joined by China and Iran in their endeavor. As such they would be forming an alliance to increase political clout in the region. This would be a physical indication of a willingness on the part of these countries to work together to a common end.
-Am
Russia electricity holding could enter Afghanistan – Chubais
28.09.2004, 13.18
MOSCOW, September 28 (Itar-Tass) - The Unified Energy Systems of Russian (EES Rossii) could enter Afghanistan’s energy system via Tajikistan, the chief of the national electricity utility, Anatoly Chubais , said.
He told a news conference on Tuesday that “this will be possible in case of the implementation of our projects in Tajikistan, to which three to ten years are given”.
Chubais stressed that “Afghanistan is even now receiving electric energy from Tajikistan that is in turn connected to Russia”.
“We are seriously analysing grid projects for Afghanistan,” he said.
Chubais did not rule out that the EES Rossii could join China’s energy system in prospect.
“At present this topic sounds hypothetically, but it could become a reason for serious talks in a year,” Chubais said at the conference Russia: Investment in the Economy of Growth.
“China is now present in discussions of our plans, even though Iran sounds in them far more often, which, one the one and, works in a synchronous regime with Azerbaijan and, on the other, with Armenia,” Chubais said.
He added that he could probably hold talks in Iran soon.
As for other operations of EES Rossii abroad, Chubais said “large- scale projects could appear in the nearest time in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan”.
He admitted that talks on the Russian company’s buying a 50 percent stake in Kazakhstan’s Ekibastuz hydroelectric station were difficult, but were nearing completion.
Besides, “we have got positive results in Georgia”.
“Despite the most acute political events, our business in this country is developing positively, and the Georgian leadership on the whole has been able to find a sound approach to solving this issues,”” Chubais said.
He expressed hope that the coming winter in Georgia, whose energy system EES Rossii owns, would go without failures of the energy and heat supply.
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."
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