The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations

by Daniel Yergin

The breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 quickly led to acrimony between the two countries over the price of Russian gas and the tariffs charged by Ukraine for passage through its pipelines. Yet the disputes were largely containable until the 2004 contested Ukrainian presidential election in which the “two Viktors” were pitted against each other. The initial winner in what was widely seen as a rigged election was Viktor Yanukovych, the sitting prime minister and a onetime boxer. Yanukovych’s native language was Russian, and he was Moscow’s candidate. His opponent was the other Viktor—Viktor Yushchenko, a former prime minister and head of the central bank and a native Ukrainian speaker, for whom Europe was the great calling.