RUSSIA: Russian president Vladimir Putin ended a bridge-building visit to Hungary and the Czech Republic yesterday, but his admission of Moscow's moral responsibility for communist-era bloodshed in the two countries left the Baltic states fuming.
By accepting Russian blame - if not legal responsibility - for the Soviet crackdown on the 1956 Budapest uprising and the 1968 Prague protests, Baltic officials and analysts say Mr Putin snubbed three nations that Kremlin forces occupied for five decades.
"We have constantly asked Russia to admit the wrong the Soviet Union did to the Baltic states," said Latvian foreign minister Artis Pabriks.
"It seems that Russia is now trying to divide eastern European states by admitting political responsibility for what the Soviet Union did in one state and denying it in another."
In Hungary, Mr Putin returned a priceless book collection seized by the Red Army in 1945, and Czech officials gave him a portrait stolen by Nazi troops from Ukraine at around the same time.
Mr Putin struck another note of reconciliation by visiting a Prague monument to Tsarist troops who fought alongside Czechs in the Habsburg army.
But his visit to two new EU members that are relatively friendly towards Moscow also highlighted his problems with Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and influential Poland.
Moscow's offer of energy deals with Budapest and Prague also piqued Baltic states already fuming at a planned pipeline from Russia to Germany that would bypass them.
Lithuanian analyst Virginijus Savukynas said Russia would do whatever necessary to improve its foothold in "New Europe".
"It seems natural to the Russians that they should exert an influence on these countries, be it through the energy sector or any other means," he said.