It's getting cold in Europe...

[Sarmatian]

Where are you getting this information? I believe you, but I'm just curious. I haven't read in depth enough (yet).

All sources really, TV, newspapers, internet. There's a wiki article about it, although it's the short version. Serbia signed a deal with Russia recently that involves selling them 51% Serbian national oil and gas company, South Stream pipeline deal and building a huge storage for gas in Serbia. There was a pretty heated discussion about it in the parliament so we were bombarded with information for several weeks, like how much they will pay, what's the price of gas, how much they pay Ukraine for transit etc etc...

It seems that the deal will be made soon. It is unclear whether only EU observers will be present in Ukraine or both EU and Russian. Russia wants her own observers there, too, although I don't think it's gonna be a stumbling block. It's in the interest of both sides that gas flow is not disrupted so there's no reason not to trust each other...