Poking the bear with a stick

Well it's a mixed bag so far for the Westward-leaning Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko burnt the midnight oil in negotiations over Gasprom's delivery of natural gas to Ukraine and the renegotiation of alleged debts. The good news is that the old pair of shifty intermediary companies will be replaced by a new pair of shifty intermediaries. The new firms will be jointly owned by Gazprom and Naftogaz, a Ukrainian state company. The bad news is that at the same time, Putin has advised Ukraine against joining NATO. Russia will reduce it's military cooperation with Ukraine and would target its missiles at Ukraine if it allowed the U.S. to put a missile defense system in place there. Needless to say, Ukraine's biggest bargaining chip, having a say on if and how Russia joins the WTO, may have just gotten a little bit more important.