Playing at Multiple Chessboards Simultaneously: Russia’s Framing of Energy Relations with Ukraine and the EU
Journal: Lirias (KU Leuven)
Year: 2015

Russia’s elite discourse often seems inconsistent, and even contradictory at some times. This raises the question what has actually been said, and what policy consequences one could expect. One case of this discursive ambiguity could be observed in Russia’s energy relations with Ukraine. Whereas Medvedev publicly claimed that ‘the Russian side has never used economic factors to decide political issues’, Putin highlighted such a political package deal proclaiming that ‘We [the Russian government]