In the case of the gas industry, the corruption goes very deep indeed. Ukrainian sources say that key people in the energy ministry and the main state-owned companies are effectively also working for Moscow. "Gazprom has total visibility throughout the decision-making and managerial processes in Kiev," one old hand told me.

On one level that may not be so surprising: after all, the Ukrainian and Russian gas systems were once inseparable, and there are strong cultural ties, especially in the senior ranks whose careers were nurtured in the old Soviet Ministry of Gas (now known as Gazprom).

Perhaps most disturbing is the strong possibility that Russia has prevailed on Ukraine not to exploit its own rich indigenous reserves of natural gas, thereby reducing Russian sales and influence. It is hard to prove a negative, but there is much circumstantial evidence.

The original Soviet gas industry was founded on Ukrainian gas fields in the 1930s. When these were overrun by the Germans in the Second World War, development moved east, first to the Volga-Urals region, then after the war to Central Asia, and in the 1960s and '70s to Western Siberia. Ukrainian gas production did revive, but it was on a small scale compared to the "supergiants" in Turkmenistan and the Tyumen region of Siberia. These colossal gas provinces provided the fuel for postwar Soviet industry and the big export contracts signed with German, French and Italian buyers from 1973 onwards. It is unsurprising, particularly given the way the Soviets always went for big developments – a kind of industrial gigantism – that Ukraine received little investment.

But once Ukraine became independent, common sense would suggest that it should look to its own resources. By and large it failed to do so.

In 1985, Ukraine produced 39 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas, nearly 7 per cent of the Soviet total. By 1991, Ukrainian production had halved, while Russian production had risen 40 per cent. In the years of independence, production in Ukraine and Turkmenistan dwindled as Russian output boomed. The Soviet pipeline system gathered gas from Central Asia and Siberia and delivered it to Moscow and other Soviet population centres as well as to Western markets via Ukraine. In the Soviet era, Turkmenistan was guaranteed a certain level of production and a share of the hard currency export proceeds. All that died with the USSR. Turkmenistan could not export its gas unless it suited Gazprom, but it did at least have enough for its own needs. Ukraine didn't. And while there was plenty of foreign interest in helping Kiev out, matters proceeded at a snail's pace.

In the late 1990s, a Western oil company with a concession to revive an old Ukrainian gas field had some modest success. This field accounted for perhaps 3 per cent of Ukrainian output, and it was clear the company could double this without trouble. The obstacle was the small diameter of a short section of pipe connecting the field to the national transmission network. The company did not control this piece of pipe, and asked the authorities to replace it with something bigger. The request was ignored, and then after some months turned down. The company offered to arrange and pay for the work itself. Again, permission was refused.