Bush raises Russian hackles and queries Putin's democracy drive

Russia/US: President George Bush arrived in Russia for yesterday's VE Day celebrations after raising the Kremlin's hackles by…

Russia/US: President George Bush arrived in Russia for yesterday's VE Day celebrations after raising the Kremlin's hackles by condemning Moscow's post-war domination of eastern Europe, questioning the health of Russian democracy and calling for political change across the former Soviet Union.

Mr Bush flew to Moscow on Saturday after honouring the Allied war dead at Margraten cemetery in southern Holland, and attending a summit with Baltic leaders in Latvia that will have done nothing to soothe strained ties with host, president Vladimir Putin.

The US leader landed in the Baltic states as they urged Mr Putin to apologise for five decades of Soviet occupation of the three countries, a move supported by senior EU and US officials, but flatly rejected by an angry Kremlin.

In a wide-ranging speech on Saturday evening, Mr Bush made it clear where his sympathies lay.

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"We recognise that in the West, the end of World War Two meant peace, but in the Baltics it brought occupation and communist oppression," he said, calling Soviet hegemony in eastern Europe "one of the greatest wrongs of history".

Those words clashed starkly with Mr Putin's recent assessment of the collapse of the Soviet Union as "the geopolitical catastrophe of the century".

Before an audience of dignitaries that included the presidents of Lithuania and Estonia, who declined their invitations to the extravaganza in Moscow, Mr Bush also alluded to widespread criticism of Mr Putin for ruling Russia with an increasingly heavy hand.

"All free and successful countries share certain characteristics: freedom of worship, freedom of the press, economic liberty, the rule of law and limitation of power through checks and balances," Mr Bush said.

"In the long run, the strength of Russian democracy will determine the greatness of Russia. I believe the people of Russia value their freedom, and will settle for nothing less."

Amid continuing Russian anger over perceived US orchestration of recent revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine that brought pro-Western leaders to power, Mr Bush pushed openly for democratic change throughout the old Soviet Union, where authoritarian allies of Moscow are now coming under increasing pressure. Belarus, which Alexander Lukashenko has ruled for 11 years and serves as Russia's strongest buffer with the growing EU, was the first target named.

"All of us are committed to the advance of democracy in Belarus," Mr Bush declared. "The people of that country live under Europe's last dictatorship, and they deserve better."

He also said he backed "democratic progress in Moldova", which is already easing free of Moscow's influence, and then broadened his scope.

"All the nations that border Russia will benefit from the spread of democratic values - and so will Russia itself," Mr Bush insisted, comments that will irk a Kremlin that has a wary eye on central Asia after Kyrgyzstan's revolution earlier this year.

Before yesterday's Moscow summit of leaders from the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which included Mr Putin, Kyrgyzstan's acting president Kurmanbek Bakiyev appeared to align himself with Mr Bush.

"I think the CIS has no other choice - the whole world is developing on the basis of democratic principles and the CIS has to go in that direction, too," he said. Mr Bush, meanwhile, was with the Netherlands' Queen Beatrix, prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende and hundreds of veterans at Margraten, where some 8,000 US soldiers are buried.

The US president and Dutch monarch laid wreaths before a war memorial decked with American and Dutch flags, and stood for a gun salute, a solemn bugle call, the national anthems of both countries and a flyover by seven fighter jets.

"We commemorate a great victory for liberty. And the thousands of white marble crosses and Stars of David underscore the terrible price we paid for that victory," Mr Bush said, looking out over the pristinely kept graveyard, where about 10,000 people braved wet and windy weather to attend the ceremony.

After being greeted in the Netherlands by protests against the war in Iraq, Mr Bush also urged the world to unite to bring peace to the Middle East.

"Freedom is the permanent hope of all mankind," he said. "And when that hope is made real for all people, it will be because of the sacrifices of a new generation of men and women, as selfless and dedicated to liberty as those we honour today."