Three days later, on December 20, to the surprise of many, word got out that Russia and Ukraine had concluded a settlement of what had seemed to be their endlessly acrimonious natural gas battle. It was more than a “tie”; it was the deal that Ukraine could only have hoped for: Russia guaranteed five years of volumes of natural gas to Europe through Ukraine, which would assure a level of transit revenues. Even more surprising, Russia agreed to pay Ukraine a $3 billion arbitration claim that Ukraine had won against Gazprom. That was roughly equivalent to one year of transit revenues to Kyiv.
