RUSSIA which is a major transit route for Russian energy exports to Europe – are all nervous. Based on a fear of Russian state-controlled Gazprom’s intentions, the Bush Administration, Nato officials and the governments of several east and central European states, as well as the UK, are demanding that Brussels acts, and acts swiftly, to reign in Russia. At
LAND GRAB The Russian army has withdrawn from some Georgian territory but troops still remain in the disputed regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia
MEDVEDEV IS BUSILY RECRUITING NEW ALLIES IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE GULF... RUSSIA NOW INTENDS TO TAKE THE LEAD IN THE ARAB WORLD risk are several pipeline and tanker routes through the Caucasus, Black Sea, Mediterranean and Baltic regions. “What we have seen is a complete paradigm shift in the security architecture of Europe,” Estonia’s president, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, said after talking to George Bush in August. “Everything we have done has been based on the assumption that Russia won’t engage in aggression. That premise is no longer operable.” “What is happening in Georgia has direct consequences for Poland and its interests, ABDUL TURAY for its energy diEDITOR-IN-CHIEF versification plans,” the BALTIC TIMES president of Poland, Lech Here in the Baltics no Kaczynski, told reporters one really trusts Russia in early September. His anyway and so we have country is actively oplearnt nothing new about posing the construction Russia’s ambitions. If there is of the North Stream gas a revelation from all this, it is pipeline under the Baltic that Nato is not as committed Sea, being built under to Baltic security as people a Russian partnership
agreement with Germany, for fear that Russia could use its energy exports as a political tool. “When the former Soviet Union fell apart, the so-called ‘fourth corridor’ of energy exports [to Europe] opened up,” says Alex Forbes, a London-based independent energy analyst. Oil and gas can only travel to the west “via Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia to believed. Nato has refused to Turkey. South of that corsend troops or take practical ridor lies Iran, and north of measures to bolster defences it Russia. That corridor is in any way. Recent comments strategic, and for Europe, by the secretary general very strategic.” demoralised many people There is a theory, he obhere. Maybe the answer is a serves, “that Russia had strong EU defence initiative. been waiting for an excuse to Let Europe defend itself raise doubts about [the energy — we can’t rely on the corridor’s] stability. It’s hard to say whether Russia intended Americans. [its invasion of Georgia] to become
an energy war, but it has become an energy war ipso facto.” The problem for Brussels is that some of the EU’s largest members, such as Germany, France and Italy, along with Austria, Slovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria – all countries heavily dependent on Russian energy supplies – have called for dialogue with Russia, rather than
EITHER WE WANT TO RELAUNCH THE COLD WAR, ISOLATE RUSSIA, STAMP ON IT... OR WE CHOOSE THE OPTION OF DIALOGUE FRANÇOIS FILLON
sanctions or a halt in proposed partnership talks between the EU and Moscow. “Either we want to relaunch the Cold War, point our finger at Russia, isolate it and stamp on it as was the case for a decade… or we choose the option of dialogue,” French Prime Minister François Fillon told French radio, according to Reuters, just before an emergency
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