Did We Buy the Rights?

Or just threaten to withhold support?

The International Monetary Fund required Ukraine’s government to reform its economy, reduce government debt, and open up its market to foreign investment.

Ukraine’s economy has been in the gutter for the past year and has been kept afloat by the IMF and aid money from the E.U. and U.S.

[...]

According to Russia’s state run RIA Novosti anyway, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law Thursday that allows the government to hand over 49% of the country’s gas transport system to investors from the European Union and the United States. That is quite different from actually doing it, but it opens the door to the West and opens the wound that the Russia-Ukraine political imbroglio has caused since February, when pro-Russia president Viktor Yanukovych was ousted from office by extra legal means.

The law allows foreign operators the right to “the management and/or concession or lease” of the gas pipelines and underground storage facilities, now dominated by Russia. The law also allows Ukraine’s government to establish a company to operate underground storage facilities, in which American and European investors can own up to 49%.

  Forbes

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.