As Ukraine is a corrupt mess politically and economically, with the Russian wolf still at the door, heroic capitalist changes are required to boost Ukraine above rust belt status.

Russian gas may well be the most profitable gas in the world, but then, that could be said of anything marketed at the point of a Russian rifle?
We should counter this form of marketing, with the least expensive gas in the world!
Bio-gas!
Bio-gas,(methane) is created naturally or via a two tank system digester.
Every household or accommodation high rise, produces enough biological waste, to produce enough bio-gas, to completely power their homes, all while providing free hot water.
Adding food scraps/wastage to the digester process, creates a salable energy surplus.
Currently, it is possible to power diesel engines with this gas, just by putting some steel wool in the intake, that removes most of the Co2 created with the methane.
The energy coefficient of this type of energy conversion, is somewhere between 20-40%
The engine has many moving parts which can and do wear out, creating ongoing inefficiency over time!
However, scrubbing this gas and then feeding it to a super silent ceramic cell, with no moving parts, produces results which include little or no carbon emission, and an energy coefficient, of up to 80%!
Or virtually double that of current conversion versions.
The most profitable gas in the world, ought to be countered with the cheapest, and indeed, locally available to all humans who produce biological waste!
Meaning, the world could end its reliance on Russian gas inside a year, if we were but led by thinkers, rather than ideologues, or the powerful, accepting covert backhanders, from current oil/gas suppliers?
Well?
If there is another more convincing explanation for the current status quo, I'd like to hear it!
Rhrosty.

What gibberish. Ukraine has no gas; it has pipelines which were not built or paid for by Ukrainians.

Reality check by Bloomberg. "Ukraine hosts a network of Soviet-era pipelines that carry more than half of Russia’s gas exports to the European Union, any disruption of supply puts the region’s energy security at risk."

Gibberish?
It is reported fact that the Crimea has substantial reserves of both gas and oil!
Hence the Russian interest?
I mean, they wouldn't want the Ukraine to stop being dependent on Russia, who clearly use their oil and gas, as economic blackmail, to keep Ukraine rolling over, begging for a tummy rub and out of NATO!
The Ukraine also has huge shale deposits, which if fully developed, could sound the death knell of Russian control and or, manipulation?
Those shale deposits, some in the east, some in the west, if fully developed, might well end European dependence on Russian oil or gas!
Something Putin, who owns significant oil wells or shares himself, would not welcome?
After all, the only reliable export incomes generated by a still impoverished Russia, are largely the product of oil and gas sales!
And it just about all that finances Russia's military?
I mean, tax avoidance in Russia, by the ruling elite is legendary?
Were the Ukraine to develop a bio-gas industry, never again could they be blackmailed by their larger neighbor, during the height of a sub zero Russian/Ukraine winter!
Moreover, they would never ever run out of gas, or have the tap turned off, by a hostile, sabre rattling, price gouging foreign supplier!
When the soviet union broke up, so also did the ownership of former soviet pipelines, nuclear power stations and ICBM silos!
If Russia and or Putin has a problem accepting that? Tough!
And hardly a logical reason to start a new cold war, or conflict with a smaller Ukraine, which has a fairly large standing Army of it's own; and a defense posture based on the never ever defeated Austrian self defense model.
I mean, the Russians, with all the might of the soviet union at their disposal, couldn't defeat tiny Afghanistan!
So how do you think they'd fare, trying to bite off a much bigger lump, that is a now thoroughly enraged hostile Ukraine, which includes many Russian speakers in the east, who hate the Russian dictator Putin with a rare passion, previously reserved for Herr Hitler?
Rhrosty.

The last Soviet Union president, Mr Gorbachev, was a Ukrainian!
The Ukraine was the second largest state of that former confederation, and as the food bowl, generated much of the wealth and billions in wheat export incomes, much of which would have paid for the pipelines, which now traverse Ukrainian land!
The Ukraine, with the River Don Cossack, has a enduring history of military conflict and armed resistance against Russia, that even predates the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union acquired the Ukraine as the spoils of repeated wars, rather than informed consent, or Ukrainian acquiescence?
Some Russians may well pine for the former Soviet Union, their place at the centre of it, along with the former power and influence, that that gave them.
However, they stand almost alone as a former state of the Soviet confederation, in wanting a return to that outcome! Or the cold war, and standing on the brink of mutually assured destruction; and the gulags and slave labor, that was an inherent part of it!?
A very small minority of Russians want to return to those days, and all that went with it.
However, the overwhelming sane majority, clearly do not!
Rhrosty.