The Fall of the Soviet Union and the Legacies of Energy Dependencies in Eastern Europe

Abstract

Against the background of energy (inter-)dependencies created during the Soviet period between the energy-rich and energy-poor Soviet republics, as well during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and individual European CMEA states, this chapter focuses on the post-Soviet impact of these legacies on each of these two groups of states. In doing so, it focuses not only on the way they affected relations between individual states, but also on their impact on these states’ political and economic development after the dissolution of the Communist “bloc” and the breakup of the Soviet Union. These legacies, this chapter argues, go well beyond energy dependency: they affected not only these states’ range of energy options, but also Russia’s ability to use energy as a foreign policy tool. Most importantly—as shown through the case studies of Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic states—the energy legacies of the Soviet era synergized with other characteristics of the transition period and of the external environment at the time of the Soviet/CMEA dissolution to significantly constrain the conditions for political and economic development of these newly-independent states after 1991.