Security agents raid Ukrainian state gas company

ARMED AND masked security agents raided Ukraine’s state gas firm yesterday in a new twist to a long-running battle for political power and control of the country’s lucrative energy trade.

Ukraine’s Naftogaz said the agents were searching for original copies of its January deal with Russia’s state gas firm, Gazprom, which ended an energy crisis that reduced gas flow to the EU, forced industry in eastern Europe to scale back production and cut heating to millions of people.

Naftogaz said confiscation of the documents could prevent it paying Gazprom for recent fuel deliveries, raising the spectre of more disruption to Ukraine’s energy supply at a time of growing public anger towards leaders who continue to feud while the economic crisis ravages the country.

Energy is the latest battleground in the power struggle between President Viktor Yushchenko and prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who together led the western-backed Orange Revolution in 2004 but have since become bitter enemies.

Mr Yushchenko criticised Ms Tymoshenko’s January deal with Gazprom for allegedly giving too many concessions to Russia, while she accused his allies of driving down the value of the hryvnia currency to destabilise the economy and discredit her government.

She also says Mr Yushchenko is angry that that January deal ousted a shadowy firm called RosUkrEnergo from the gas trade between Ukraine and Russia. She claims the company is a major source of funding for his bid for re-election in a vote due before next January.

Mr Yushchenko – who trails far behind Ms Tymoshenko in opinion polls – rejects the allegations.

The raid on Naftogaz by about 20 agents of the SBU security service – which answers to Mr Yushchenko – came the day after parliament sacked one of his allies as foreign minister and just hours after the SBU reportedly arrested a senior customs official who, according to Ms Tymoshenko, had refused to channel gas imports through RosUkrEnergo.

The customs service also announced that it had legally taken over 11 billion cubic metres of gas owned by RosUkrEnergo. An SBU spokeswoman, meanwhile, said the raid was part of an investigation into Naftogaz’s illegal seizure of gas that was intended for transit across Ukraine to other countries.

Ms Tymoshenko said this week that her battle with Mr Yushchenko would end “not in my destruction but in his political suicide”.

She also called for early presidential elections and insisted that “nothing” she said, could now stop her becoming head of state.