Ukraine was paying only one-third, or even less, of what Western Europeans were paying. Why, said the Russians, should they continue to subsidize Ukraine with cheaper gas, to the tune of billions of dollars a year, when Ukraine was already billions of dollars in arrears on its gas bill, and was now led by a president who wanted to pivot away from Russia? Beyond revenues, Moscow had another objective—to gain control over the all-important Ukrainian gas pipeline system, on which it depended for sending its gas to Europe. This, however, was not on the table. As Yushchenko put it, those pipes,
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