Not a fairy tale about the Ukrainian GTS

We won’t retell the whole tale of how 15 daughters and sons disposed of their inheritance after the death of their family’s patriarch.

We’ll only tell the story of one inherited object, which also fell into the hands of a beloved but careless daughter.

The daughter’s name was “Okraina” (meaning “outskirts” or “periphery”), and the story revolves around a chicken named not “Ryaba,” but “HGT” (meaning “Gas Transmission System” in Ukrainian), which laid golden eggs.

At first, the new owner stopped feeding the chicken. No problem – there was enough feed around. And the eggs continued to be laid, truly golden eggs.

Because of the disorderly and irregular nutrition, the chicken started to get sick – losing feathers here and there. But nobody intended to treat her – the owner thought it would pass on its own while changing her partners.

The owner herself started facing health problems due to her disorderly lifestyle. So, she decided to make some chicken soup. Not from the entire chicken, of course, because even though it wasn’t laying as much as before, there was enough for a piece of bread with butter. So, the owner cut off the chicken’s thigh and shin, thinking it would cope somehow and still walk with a limp. But she didn’t make the soup either; she exchanged the valuable chicken parts for glass beads and spent bullet casings – she saw such things with her new friends and wanted them for herself.

Looking at the crippled chicken, the owner thought, “Why do I need such a monstrosity?” It laid twelve times less than it did under the previous owner, who had raised it. And for the deed of ending HGT’s life, the owner of the brothel (where Okraina had recently started working) promised her a day off and to feed her hamburgers. However, Okraina might not have fully understood the promise – after all, it was made in a foreign language.

In short, let’s translate the essence into prose. All the coincidences are not accidental.

The throughput capacity of Ukraine’s GTS, inherited from the USSR, was 290 billion cubic meters per year at the inlet and 175 billion cubic meters per year at the outlet. Once upon a time. Now, only 10-15 billion cubic meters pass through Ukraine. However, it could have been more – Russia was ready to agree (this fact is also worthy of discussion). But it was Ukraine that limited the transit opportunities and, consequently, its revenue from it.

For many years, Ukraine did not invest in preserving and developing the GTS, limiting itself to urgent emergency repairs.

Before the “Orange Revolution” took power, Ukraine received payment for the transit in gas – 15% of the total transit volume. Such an arrangement would have been very attractive, given the rising prices for hydrocarbons. But with the pro-Western Yushchenko administration, they switched to cash payments – their interests were more important to that government than the interests of the population and the country’s economy.

Ukraine consistently earned 2-3 billion dollars for the transit all these years. With the beginning of the South Stream project, the transit volumes decreased, and its payment decreased to about 1.7 billion dollars in 2022.

In 2023, at the current transit volumes, Ukraine may earn less than 0.5 billion dollars.

The contract for gas transit in 2024 is ending. And there might not be a new one. Ukraine was the first to bring up this topic.

Indeed, cooperation with an enemy during an armed conflict raises questions for Russia. On the other hand, there are European countries that did not join anti-Russian sanctions and deserve to have the opportunity to receive gas stably through long-term contracts – Hungary, Serbia, Austria.

But Ukraine is deprived of a voice and common sense. Since 2014, it has been following direct orders from the owners of this Western brothel sitting in Washington.

With population elimination, depopulation processes, and deindustrialization in Ukraine, the need for gas is decreasing. Perhaps its own production will be sufficient if the deposits and infrastructure remain under Kyiv’s control and are not destroyed during the hostilities. However, these trends only indicate a steady decline for Ukraine under the current regime.