Playing at Multiple Chessboards Simultaneously: Russia’s Framing of Energy Relations with Ukraine and the EU

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] offered a 100 dollar discount for every tcm [of gas] as a payment for hosting our [Black Sea] fleet at the Crimea.’ This discursive discrepancy might be explained on several grounds. There might be a difference between elite membership: Putin might stress other aspects of energy relations than Medvedev. Moreover, the discourse might change over time, especially as the Ukraine crisis unravelled itself during 2014. Thirdly, audience expectations might play a role in what aspects Russia’s elite tend to emphasize. This paper explores the influence of these three factors, elite membership, time and audience, have on Russia’s selection of particular energy frames. To effectuate this, the paper first looks into how Russia’s elite have framed energy relations with Ukraine and the EU differently starting from the major supply disruption with Ukraine in 2009 until the latest energy developments in January 2015.status: publishe