The war in Ukraine is fueled by Russian natural gas

As the frigid winter air begins to descend upon Ukraine, it is accompanied this year by a different chill from the north, as Russian President Vladimir Putin last week sent additional columns of tanks, artillery and combat troops into sovereign Ukrainian territory, thus doubling down on his invasion of the largest nation in Europe, with recent reports indicating that Russia is eyeing further advances into yet another eastern Ukrainian city, the port city of Mariupol.

The move of forces into Ukraine, the largest-scale move in many months, came within hours of Russian warships approaching Australia’s borders, of Russia threatening reconnaissance flights over North American waters and, importantly, of the beginning of the Group of 20 summit that concluded Sunday. It seems Putin relishes his role as the defiant ruffian in a room of flustered schoolmarms, seizing the opportunity to look world leaders in the eye even as he brazenly defies every strongly worded letter and breathless admonition they can muster.

{mosads}Fittingly, this month also marks the anniversary of the beginning of the protests on Kiev’s Maidan, protests that ultimately led to the Ukrainian people’s overthrow of Russian-controlled President Viktor Yanukovych.

Much has happened in the year since the protests began, but one fact remains: The diplomatic chill exacerbated by the war in eastern Ukraine is fueled by Russian natural gas.

It is difficult to escape the distinct feeling that Putin was providing a glimpse of his own hand when he wrote in The New York Times of American involvement in Syria, “No one wants the United Nations to suffer the fate of the League of Nations, which collapsed because it lacked real leverage. This is possible if influential countries bypass the United Nations and take military action without Security Council authorization.”

Since Russia began its military operations in earnest this February, criticism from the international community has been essentially unanimous. Poland, separated from Russia only by Ukraine, has called the activity “disturbing.” Germany has expressed outrage, levying some sanctions and working through the Weimar Triangle (an association consisting of Germany, Poland, and France) to attempt to minimize bloodshed. Lithuania joined the United States in aerial military exercises earlier this year, while Estonia agreed to host aircraft from NATO. In March, both Bulgaria and Romania, likewise, participated in exercises in the Black Sea with an American destroyer.

There has been no shortage of posturing around the globe. But with a seat on the United Nations Security Council — and the corresponding ability to veto any action the council might seek to take — Russia has nothing to fear from a United Nations that “lacks real leverage.” Meanwhile, the White House, for its part, has seemed content to stand by and largely allow others to do the heavy lifting. As the Moscow Times put it, “the main Western players are neither the U.S., nor NATO. … For Washington, the responsibility for solving this crisis lies with the EU and, in particular, Germany. From a U.S. perspective, Europe has to take care of its own security.”

But the simple fact is this: For all of the good intentions of European nations seeking to resolve this situation, these countries cannot ultimately exert the kind of pressure necessary to have a decisive impact. The reason is simple: The ceiling of their collective outrage is the point at which their own self-preservation becomes threatened.

Natural gas makes up between one-quarter and one-third of the European Union’s total energy consumption, and one-third of the entire European Union’s natural gas comes from Russia. The picture is more striking when examining individual nations. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Bulgaria — all eager participants in recent military exercises intended to put Russia on notice — fulfill 100 percent of their natural gas needs with Russian gas. Poland and Germany, two-thirds of the Weimar Triangle and two of the most outspoken critics of Putin’s policies in Ukraine, also receive about 80 percent and 40 percent, respectively, of their natural gas from Russia. The numbers are similarly alarming throughout the rest of Europe.

The reality of Russia’s stranglehold over Europe’s energy markets, besides helping to explain why Europe cannot lead the charge in standing up to Putin, also highlights two other important factors: Putin’s desperation to circumvent Ukraine’s strategic importance and the United States’s unique position to confront Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

To the first point, 80 percent of the copious amount of Russian natural gas flowing into Europe in 2010 had to get there through pipelines in Ukraine, providing Ukraine with considerable leverage. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has been as much about mitigating that leverage as it has been about reuniting his vision of a historic Russian state. The noose of Russian gas is firmly around Europe’s neck. With the construction of the planned South Stream gas pipeline, which un-coincidentally circumvents Ukraine and flows through the same Black Sea that Russia now seeks to control with its invasion of the Crimean peninsula, Putin aims to finally open the gallows’s trapdoor.

Setting aside any arguments that helping a people striving for freedom is the moral thing to do, and even setting aside the unavoidable fact that the United States is the most powerful nation in the world and leaves a vacuum of power where it is silent, the United States is better positioned to stand up to Russia if only because it is not in any way beholden to Russia’s natural gas. Indeed, we are among the only world powers able to make that claim. Great Britain, formerly able to claim the same level of independence, recently announced that it, too, would begin importing Russian gas.

The United States also has another tool at its disposal in the form of its alliance with Canada. Besides being a longtime and incomparably close ally to the United States, Canada is home to both the largest Ukrainian population outside of Ukraine and Russia and one of the only natural gas reserves on the planet that comes close to approaching the levels of Russia.

A strong American leadership must utilize a combination of paralyzing economic sanctions, including on the energy sector that is Russia’s economic lifeblood (over 50 percent of Russia’s total revenue comes from oil and gas, accounting for 68 percent of Russia’s total export revenue in 2013), mobilization of energy assets both domestically and among our closest allies to help wean Ukraine and the rest of Europe off its addiction to Russian natural gas and, where necessary, a resolution on the part of the world’s greatest military power that we will not cower in the face of Russian military posturing.

Carnes is the communications director for Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) and president of the Congressional Ukrainian Association.