The Struggle for Pipelines: Gazprom’s Attempts at Strategic Expansion in the “Near Abroad”

Building a Eurasian energy empire required Gazprom’s expansion into Russia’s “near abroad”—the former Soviet republics besides Russia, often called “formerly Soviet countries,” or FSCs. This diverse group comprises the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), the eastern European states (Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova), the states of the trans-Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia), and the Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kirgizia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan). After the Soviet collapse in 1991, Gazprom lost control over energy assets in these countries: the new independent states got control of the extensive gas transportation infrastructure within their borders. This infrastructure served not only domestic gas consumption and distribution but also the transit of Russian gas export to Europe. Three Central Asian FSCs—Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan—also possessed in their territories significant gas fields that were of strategic importance to Gazprom because they served as reserves to make up for falling gas production in Russia itself. Ukraine and Azerbaijan also are gas producers. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, Gazprom made several concerted attempts to restore its control of the gas reserves, infrastructure, and markets in all of these countries.