Even With A Natural Gas Deal, Russia-Ukraine Relations Are Still In A Deep Freeze

With Political Rift Still Deep, Russia-Ukraine Gas Deal Is Widely Seen as a Patch -- New York Times

OTTAWA — A deal struck on Thursday to restart Russian natural gas supplies to Ukraine will keep homes heated this winter, but it does not fully settle a fierce, long-running fight over energy prices that is likely to resume early next year if not sooner, analysts said Friday.

More crucially, though, the grudging acceptance of the deal did not signal an imminent end to the deeper political dispute over eastern Ukraine. That standoff has brought Russia and the West into their most dangerous conflict since the Cold War and spawned the bloodiest violence in Europe since the conflicts in the Balkans of the 1990s.

The agreement was reached after Europe brokered a payment of more than $3 billion in past-due bills to Gazprom, the Kremlin-controlled energy giant — and after each side bowed to financial realities.

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Update: Could gas deal signal Russia - Ukraine detente? -- Fred Weir, CSM

My Comment: As long as the crisis/conflict continues in eastern Ukraine .... I do not see any substantive moves towards a Russia - Ukraine reconciliation.