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Federico Bordonaro, an energy-security analyst with the Italian-based group equilibre.net, says both Moscow and Kyiv lost something in the recent dispute and shutting off of gas to European countries.

The gas row between Ukraine and Russia has revived this so-called pipeline geopolitical battle between the Nabucco route and the South Stream route," Bordonaro says. "Nabucco is still attractive to the Europeans because Nabucco would ease the dependency on Russian gas as its main sources should be the Turkmen and the Azeri gas fields, and in the future Nabucco could also try to exploit the Iranian gas fields."

Moreover, with other transit countries like Belarus at the ready, one party's loss could well prove another's gain.

He says officials in Minsk are eager to "enhance the role" of the Yamal-Europe pipeline, a major route that stretches from western Siberia to Europe through Belarus, and adds that a second leg "could be carried out in a year or 18 months from now."

Although Belarus has proven to be a difficult transit partner in its own right. During a pricing dispute in January 2007, Russia briefly suspended oil shipments through Belarus's Druzhba pipeline amid claims that Minsk was siphoning off shipments destined for Europe.

If the EU were to proceed on work with Russia on a Nord Stream-South Stream strategy, then Ukraine might emerge as the greatest loser from the recent dispute. But momentum is growing in Europe for the bloc to circumvent Russian gas altogether -- meaning the long-stalled Nabucco project is suddenly back in the spotlight.

Turkmenistan and Iraq have signaled interest in the Nabucco project by arranging to send delegations to a Budapest conference of shareholders and potential suppliers to the pipeline on January 26-27. The conference has been scheduled since late last year, but coming on the heels of the recent gas dispute, interest in the project is expected to be high.