As the world's number one gas producer, which extracts 550 billion cubic meters of gas yearly, provides around one fifth of Europe's gas imports and accounts for seven percent of Russia's annual gross domstic product, Gazprom is a powerful weapon.

And since Alexei Miller, a loyalist to President Vladimir Putin, took the helm of the gas behemoth in May 2001, the group has been steadily reinforcing its role as a weapon of choice for the country's political leadership.

It is against members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a loose grouping of 12 former Soviet republics, that Gazrpom has most noticeably directed its wrath, particularly against CIS members that have openly turned their backs on Moscow.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the current gas price dispute with Ukraine, a country led for the past year by pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko, where Gazprom has announced plans to more than quadruple prices starting January 1 to bring them up to "the European level".

The economic arguments are sound: Gazprom has no reason or obligation to subsidize Kiev amid skyrocketing international gas prices. But if the economics of the problem are obvious, experts say politics also play an important part.

"It was not Gazprom that decided of its own accord to seek such a sharp price increase from Kiev," one of the group's negotiators admitted this week in the Russian version of the weekly Newsweek.

This year Kiev had been demonstrative in affirming its independence from the Kremlin -- refusing to coordinate with Moscow steps for joining the World Trade Organization (WTO), putting the brakes on the creation of a common economic zone conceived by Russia to link the most powerful ex-Soviet states, and freezing the launch of a gas consortium provided in an 2002 accord between Moscow, Kiev and Berlin.

Thus the compromise offered by Gazprom is to relaunch the gas consortium or open Ukrainian gas pipelines to Russian investors in return for a more gradual price rise.

Kiev, which imports nearly 80 percent of its gas consumption, has little room for maneuver. Even if Turkmenistan supplies 45 percent of Ukraine's gas needs at a low price, Gazprom owns the pipelines in Turkmenistan and can therefore also pressure Ashkhabad on prices.

The energy weapon, already used when Boris Yeltsin was president of Russia, has proved its effectiveness. In spring 2004, it forced Belarus to cede to Gazprom a part of Beltransgaz, which manages its pipelines, receiving in exchange a rock-bottom, subsidized price for Russian gas.

However, gas diplomacy works well even beyond the former Soviet space.

"Moscow uses all the levers it has: pipeline routes, supply volumes, access to raw materials and hiring foreign personalities like 'super agents' for the country's energy strategy," noted the confidential letter Russia Intelligence.

In Europe, Russian gas is a tool of seduction, presented as a magic antidote to Europeans whose gas consumption is constantly rising and for whom an energy crisis may loom as soon as 2010, Putin said in October at a Russia-EU summit.

A huge North European pipeline, to be built beneath the Baltic Sea, would soon link Russia's gas fields with its chief European client, Germany, with the network extending to Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and Britain.

However, "Gazprom retains control (over the consortium), and that means Putin does," the Vlast weekly pointed out.

Gazprom entrusted the consortium's leadership to the Russian president's personal friend, Germany's former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who would be in charge of developing contacts.

More to the south, the Blue Stream gas pipeline to Turkey was inaugurated in November, and Gazprom chief Miller has evoked plans for its extension to southern Italy.

The group's future chief agent could be another Putin friend, Silvio Berlusconi, if he should lose next year's elections, Vlast wrote.

In Asia, Russians take pains to explain Russia's Asian vocation and position themselves as the unavoidable supplier.

"In view of these developments, the response to the question of 'what will Putin do after (his mandate expires in) 2008' is practically evident," Vlast noted, adding that "he will not be able to abandon" Gazprom.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.