The strategic significance of Ukraine for Russia cannot be over estimated, and yet the country will almost certainly be slipping through Moscow's fingers on Dec. 26, when Ukrainians will likely elect opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko to be their next president. Russia's siloviki, the leaders of the country's security and military apparatus, who share power with the more reform-minded St. Petersburg clan led by President Vladimir Putin, can only be incensed by the outcome. Their push to purge Russia of Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the other oligarchs, however, soon will lead them to the comeback trail. This effort often has appeared disorganized and lacking direction, but important economic changes afoot in Russia already seem to be giving the siloviki an organizing principle that they have been lacking. With the loss of Ukraine, Russia has reached an historical geopolitical low from which it will be difficult to recover. Domestically, however, the siloviki can take note of some significant successes with respect to the destruction of Yukos, and with a string of acquisitions by natural gas giant Gazprom that they have pushed for that are beginning to snowball. With the world's largest reserves of natural gas, significant oil reserves and a massive power sector under its control, Gazprom is set to become one of the largest companies of any kind in the world — thanks to the silovikis' desire to reassert state control over strategic resources. With Gazprom now Kremlin-owned, future acquisitions likely will see the oil pipelines of state-owned Transneft, a billion-dollar state pipeline enterprise, merged with Gazprom. This will give the company control of Russia's oil exports, the second-largest in the world after Saudi Arabia. Along the way, Gazprom will also likely swallow up more of Russia's private oil firms, adding to the reserves of Rosneft and Yuganskneftegaz. It is entirely possible that all of this will be completed in a matter of months, and with the state firmly in control of Russia's oil and gas revenues and the billions in hard currency that they bring in, the siloviki will quickly realize that the gargantuan company that Russia has built would be the perfect vehicle for projecting Russian influence abroad, and they will push Putin to use it. Gazprom will come to represent economically something that Russia now lacks militarily — the capacity to project influence beyond Russian borders. Normally, the more reform-minded St. Petersburg clan led by Putin, with which the siloviki coexist in the Kremlin — or better put, against which they compete — would seek to block some of these more aggressive maneuvers, particularly those that threaten the country's economic growth. Many St. Petersburgers in the government, in fact, have been complaining about some of the recent moves, especially those that are turning Gazprom into what Economy Minister German Gref recently called a "hypermonopoly." To find out why they are fighting a losing battle and will continue to do so, however, one need only return to the fate of Ukraine. The haphazard nature of the attack against Yukos illustrates that it was initially carried out without a plan beyond the removal of Khodorkovsky and his executives from the Russian political and economic stage. As the campaign wore on, the gutting of the company through the removal of Yuganskneftegaz became the center of the siloviki strategy, but once that decision was made a home had to be found for the Yukos subsidiary. After rumors abounded as to where Yugansk would go, the siloviki clearly came to the realization that the breakup of Yukos was an opportunity to turn Gazprom into a global oil and gas giant that will bolster the political power of the state, and they have since started pushing for just that. With the crisis in Ukraine occurring simultaneously and Russian national interest coming out decisively on the losing end, the siloviki have all the justification they need to demand concessions from Putin and the St. Petersburg clan. Having consolidated political power by achieving total control over the country's most powerful economic levers, they will next realize that an enlarged Gazprom could be the perfect instrument for reversing Russia's global loss of influence. Russia no longer has the military might to sway governments, aside from its deteriorating nuclear deterrent, which is unlikely to be put to (deliberate) use any time soon. It does, however, have an enormous amount of strategically vital energy resources upon which much of the world, Europe and East Asia in particular, is dependent — or lining up to become dependent — upon. As global energy demand continues its rapid growth, more countries will come to depend on Russia for the energy supplies for economic growth. This will be Russia's opportunity to wield renewed global influence, and the siloviki will realize this if they have not already. The creation of Gazprom Inc., begun as a siloviki-driven effort to create new foundations of power for the Russian state at home, likely will become the principal tool for the recalibration of their tactical approach to the world. By locking in the physical dependence of European and East Asian economies upon Russian energy supplies, Russia will find it much easier to pursue its goals domestically and internationally. Once Gazprom's construction is complete, a wave of business will follow that will see ground broken on oil and/or gas pipelines radiating from Russia's continental shelf to China, Japan and Europe, with major investments likely elsewhere, in South Asia and South America, for example. As this occurs, Gazprom will use its newfound cash flows and existing pipelines to fully consolidate its control over Central Asian natural gas resources, which it will continue to import on the cheap and re-export at global prices. In order to garner foreign support for the existence of a monolithic Russian energy giant and, ironically, to help fund its acquisitions, the Kremlin likely will make a limited portion of Gazprom's shares available to foreign investors who have been foaming at the mouth in recent years to get their hands on the company's shares. The Kremlin will block any foreign institution from collecting sufficient shares to able to influence company (read "Kremlin") policy in any way. Instead, Gazprom shares will be scattered in investment funds the world over, and everyone will gladly support the monopoly because the name Gazprom will be synonymous with piles of cash. Once Gazprom is in control of both oil and gas supplies and the means to deliver them and has stable revenue streams, Russian negotiation tactics with many countries will begin to change. The next time there is a crisis in the Caucasus and Europe begins to complain about Moscow's influence, Gazprom will begin to wonder publicly whether it is time to raise gas prices. After all, unlike oil, natural gas is not a fungible commodity. It necessitates a multi-billion dollar in-place transport network — such as the one linking Russian natural gas fields to European consumers — to work. Likewise, if Japan says that it intends to support U.N. resolutions put forth by the United States that Russia opposes, Gazprom will begin to wonder publicly whether or not China might be a more stable market for its resources the next time long-term contracts are up for grabs. It might not even wait that long. Gazprom revenues likely will have a military component as well for Russia. The other comparative advantage Russia has in the world aside is in military technology. Research and development in new weapons systems collapsed after 1991, but that trend likely is to be reversed thanks to Gazprom. Some of the money the company brings in will be channeled into new weapons systems, some of which will go to the Russian military, but more importantly, to the militaries of other countries. Russia has increasingly been peddling its military wares in recent years, and has many eager buyers, just as it has for its energy supplies. Just as the direction in which Russia sends its energy supplies has strategic implications that can compel potential customers to act, so does its choice of buyers of its military hardware. Currently, Russia will sell a great many things to anyone with the cash to pay for them, but this could change once some of Gazprom's revenue streams are directed toward the military establishment. Instead, countries could begin to compete to keep Russian weapons out of each other's hands, thereby driving up the asking the price in Russia's favor, which could very easily include some sort of political concessions to the Kremlin. In this fashion, Gazprom could further be used to reinvigorate the already highly advanced Russian arms industry and put it on track for greater global influence than it already has. Russia will not approach the United States in terms of defense spending in the foreseeable future, but with the weapons it has and develops it will have the opportunity to be a serious thorn in Washington's side — essentially at will. From this perspective, Gazprom is not an end in itself but a means to other ends. The rest of the world has had Russia behind the eight ball since the fall of the Soviet Union because the country's global influence had been linked entirely to its military, which collapsed like a house of cards. Russia is now in the midst of a diversification in which it will seize the opportunity to recast itself as a global player and get out from behind the eight ball. A new Gazprom will set multiple processes in motion for the Russian government and make courses of action possible that have been out of reach since 1991, which will result in a more muscular foreign policy. Russia will not limit itself to the near abroad forever — it has always had bigger aspirations. The siloviki are starting to think bigger now, and that bigger thinking will be personified by a bigger Gazprom.