Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will visit Turkmenistan in late December ostensibly to open a Russian school. But experts expect the Kremlin leader to make another push to strike an energy deal with Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov.

Medvedev met Berdymukhamedov in Moscow on November 29 and was in Ashgabat in early September. Both those meetings failed to resolve a gas dispute that has lingered since spring.

An explosion on an export pipeline in April allowed Gazprom to put on hold a 25-year contract signed in 2003 to buy 50 billion cubic meters of gas per year from Turkmenistan. Although the CAC-4 pipeline has since been fixed, purchases of Turkmen gas have not resumed.