http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=359844&version=1&template_id=46&parent_id=26
Kremlin wins back ex-Soviet states
Publish Date: Thursday,6 May, 2010, at 11:41 PM Doha Time
By Michael Stott/Moscow
Vladimir Putin has long bemoaned the fall of the Soviet Union. Now he appears
to be having some success in winning parts of it back. Analysts and diplomats
name Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and Georgia as former Soviet republics where Russia
has succeeded recently in rolling back Western influence.
Belarus, which flirted last year with the West, is tracking back towards Moscow
and has agreed, together with Central Asian powerhouse Kazakhstan, to join
Moscow in a customs union.
The West, preoccupied with financial crisis and keen to keep Russia as an ally
in tackling problems such as nuclear proliferation and Iran's military
ambitions, has acquiesced."It's extremely important to Putin to reassert
Russian influence in the (former Soviet Union)," said Maria Lipman, editor of
the Pro et Contra journal at the Moscow Carnegie Centre. "Europe can't compete
with that."
In Ukraine, newly elected leader Viktor Yanukovich scrapped plans by his
predecessor to pursue Nato membership and did a deal extending the lease of a
Russian naval base in Ukraine by 25 years in return for a 30% cut in gas
prices. Emboldened by his success, Putin suggested last Friday that Kiev should
merge its state gas company Naftogaz - which owns the pipelines taking Russian
gas across Ukraine to the West - with Russia's state-controlled giant Gazprom.
Georgia's Western allies have largely deserted President Mikheil Saakashvili
after his disastrous attempt in 2008 to retake the rebel province of South
Ossetia triggered a war with Russia and a crushing military defeat.
Saakashvili has lost public support too over the affair and Georgian opposition
politicians, some of whom favour less confrontational policies with Russia,
have already travelled to Moscow for exploratory talks with Putin.
In the poor Central Asia republic of Kyrgyzstan, former president Kurmanbek
Bakiyev blamed his fall in a popular uprising on Moscow, saying the Kremlin was
dissatisfied that he had backtracked on a promise to close a key US military
base.These developments mean all three of the "colour" revolutions, in which
mass protests swept pro-Western governments to power in Ukraine, Georgia and
Kyrgyzstan, have been reversed or seriously compromised.
"The collapse of the 'Orange' administrations in all countries except Georgia,
which is now isolated, the recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the
re-booting of relations with the US and the new strategic pact with Ukraine
together create ... ideal foreign political conditions," said Gleb Pavlovsky, a
political analyst with close ties to the Kremlin, in comments on his website
kreml.org. - Reuters
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