In Ukraine today, Parliament passed a vote of no confidence in the Government led by Prime Minister Yuri Yekhanurov, voting down the Russian gas agreement that had been laboriously reached over the last few days by President Yushenko with the Russian monopolist Gazprom. An act that was to be expected, commented to Sir Father Pavlo Vyshkovkyy from the Social Communications Office of the Ukrainian Bishops Conference, since "the opposition harshly judged the government, saying it should not have signed the agreement. The reason is, the old agreement, under which Ukraine paid gas at 50 dollars, would have remeined in force for many years. And since Russia terminated the agreement, the opposition asked to insist that Russia fulfil the agreement in full". The new agreement sets the price at 230 dollars per one thousand cube metres of methane, a price that is much higher than the 40-50 dollars that had been paid so far. Even if in fact under some accessory agreements, the real price is just above 100 dollars. After the scare of a cold winter, following Russia’s threats of "closing the gas taps", now "the population of Ukraine has calmed down at last and has gone back to its normal life tells Father Vyshkovkyy -. But many people could see with their eyes that they can no longer trust Russia’s ‘paternal’ attitude, because that ‘father’ wants its ‘children’ to be left in the cold just in the harshest time of winter. This is why many people are even keener on the decision to follow the way to the West, not to a new Soviet Union". The agreement that had been reached few days after the Russian threats, according to Father Vyshkovkyy, "had shown that Ukraine can talk with such a strategic partner as Russia, thus proving, once again after the Orange Revolution, that we are an independent country. We did not tagged along with Russia, even if it used its powerful weapon of gas to try to subdue Ukraine again. And just in winter".
