THE KHARKIV PACT, UKRAINE & RUSSIAN NATURAL GAS

Today, The Grandma has been reading about the Kharkiv Pact, the Agreement between Ukraine and Russia on the Black Sea Fleet in Ukraine.

Nowadays, the situation between these two nations is under a cruel and bloody war with thousans of innocent victims, as always happens in every war.

The Agreement between Ukraine and Russia on the Black Sea Fleet in Ukraine, widely referred to as the Kharkiv Pact, in Ukrainian Харківський пакт or Kharkov Accords, in Russian Харьковские соглашения, was a treaty between Ukraine and Russia whereby the Russian lease on naval facilities in Crimea was extended beyond 2017 until 2042, with an additional five-year renewal option in exchange for a multiyear discounted contract to provide Ukraine with Russian natural gas.

The agreement, signed on 21 April 2010 in Kharkiv, Ukraine, by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and ratified by the parliaments of the two countries on 27 April 2010, aroused much controversy in Ukraine.

The treaty was effectively a continuation of the lease provisions that were part of the 1997 Black Sea Fleet Partition Treaty between the two states. Shortly after the regime change on 22 February 2014 and the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in March 2014, Russia unilaterally terminated the treaty on 31 March 2014.

In 1997, Russia and Ukraine signed the Partition Treaty, establishing two independent national fleets and dividing armaments and bases between them. Ukraine also agreed to lease major parts of its new bases in Sevastopol to the Russian Black Sea Fleet until 2017.

During the presidency of Victor Yushchenko (January 2005-February 2010) the Ukrainian government declared that the lease would not be extended and that the fleet would have to leave Sevastopol by 2017.

More information: Outriders

Amid several Russia-Ukraine gas disputes, including a halt of natural gas supplies to European countries, the price that Ukraine had to pay for Russian natural gas was raised in 2006 and in 2009.

The Prime Minister of Ukraine, Mykola Azarov, and the Energy Minister, Yuriy Boyko, were in Moscow in late March 2010 to negotiate lower gas prices; neither clearly explained what Ukraine was prepared to offer in return.

Following these talks Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin stated that Russia was prepared to discuss the revision of the price for natural gas it sells to Ukraine. Mid-April Ukrainian officials stated they are seeking an average price of $240-$260 per 1000 cubic metres for 2010. Ukraine paid an average of $305 in the first quarter of 2010 and $330 in the second quarter.

On 21 April 2010, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych signed an agreement in which Russia agreed to a 30% drop in the price of natural gas sold to Ukraine. Russia agreed to this in exchange for permission to extend Russia's lease of a major naval base in the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Sevastopol for an additional 25 years (to 2042) with an option for a further 5-year renewal (to 2047). The agreement put a cap on the scale of price hikes; but the main unfavourable terms for Ukraine of the 2009 gas contract remained in place.

We have indeed reached an unprecedented agreement," the Russian president stated. "The rent [for the naval base] will be increased by an amount equivalent to that of the [gas price] discount.

The agreement was subject to approval by both the Russian and Ukrainian parliaments. Both parliaments ratified the agreement on 27 April 2010.

More information: Day Kyiv

Ratification in the Ukrainian parliament proved controversial, and several disturbances occurred during the process. In one incident, several eggs were thrown towards the speaker, Volodymyr Lytvyn, by deputies.

On 28 March 2014, one week after the annexation of Crimea by Russia Russian President Vladimir Putin submitted proposals to the State Duma on the termination of the legal effect of a number of Russian-Ukrainian agreements, including the 2010 Kharkiv Pact treaty and the Partition Treaty on the Status and Conditions of the Black Sea Fleet. The State Duma unanimously approved the unilateral dissolution of these Russian-Ukrainian agreements with 433 members of parliament voting on 31 March 2014.

In June 2010, Ukraine paid Gazprom around $234 per 1,000 cubic metres. However, Ukrainian consumers experienced a 50% increase on household natural gas utility prices in July 2010, a key demand of the International Monetary Fund in exchange for a $15 billion loan.

Payments increased annually since then: in August 2011, Ukraine paid Russia $350 per 1,000 cubic metres; in November 2011, it paid $400 per 1,000 cubic meters; and in January 2013, it paid $430 per 1,000 cubic metres.

In August 2011, Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov stated that Ukraine seeks to reduce imports of Russian natural gas by two-thirds, compared with 2010, by 2016.

The treaty allowed Russia to station a limited number of troops in Crimea, 25,000 maximum.

In summer of 2014, the General Prosecutor of Ukraine opened a criminal case against Viktor Yanukovych on several charges.

More information: The Guardian

On the day I became Soviet leader, in March 1985,
I had a special meeting with the leaders
of the Warsaw Pact countries and told them:
'You are independent, and we are independent.
You are responsible for your policies,
we are responsible for ours.
We will not intervene in your affairs, I promise you.

Mikhail Gorbachev