Between Private and State Interests: the Role of Energy in Ukrainian-Russian Relations (Research Brief)

Participation in the IARO Program allowed me to conduct field research in Ukraine on the issue of energy relations with Russia and the management of the country’s energy dependency. Some of the main questions I explored were: (a) How are domestic political battles affecting the possibilities open to Russian oil and gas companies in Ukraine? (b) Through which formal and informal political and interest-group networks are Russian energy companies working through? How are these related to various private and state Russian interests? Balmaceda/IREX IARO Report 2004 2 (c) What are the consequences in terms of the larger Russian-Ukrainian relationship? (d) In what ways is the activity of Russian energy companies in Ukraine similar to and different from their behavior in Hungary, Belarus, Poland and Slovakia?

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Margarita M. Balmaceda, of the School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University, was a 2003-04 Individual Advanced Research Opportunities (IARO) fellow.