Caught cold by Russia's show of power

Russia is resurgent, its language belligerent and its further territorial ambitions unclear. But has the West any real leverage to back up its tough words against its main energy supplier?

AS RUSSIA REDRAWS its world maps after unilaterally recognising the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the rest of the globe is left to ponder the impact of Moscow's shock decision - and wonder where the Kremlin will next flex its newly restored muscle.

Just as Georgia was caught cold by Russia's swift military response to its attempt to retake control of South Ossetia this month, so western powers were stunned this week by Moscow's formal acknowledgement of the sovereignty of the two rebel Georgian regions.

Those moves, and the continued presence of Russians troops far inside Georgian territory, have plunged relations between Kremlin and the European Union and United States to a post-Cold War low, and prompted talk of a prolonged diplomatic freeze.

Even more disturbing were Moscow's warnings that an alleged build-up of Nato warships in the Black Sea could provoke a confrontation with its own fleet, and a senior Russian diplomat's comparisons between the current crisis in the Caucasus and 1914, when events in the Balkans sent Europe lurching into war.

Russian, US and major EU leaders have played down fears of a military conflict, but the Kremlin's first attack on a former Soviet state - albeit an attack that it called an operation to "enforce peace" - has changed the rules of relations between Moscow and the West.

As many people in Abkhazia and South Ossetia celebrated Russian recognition of their independence, Tbilisi said the move confirmed that Russia's "invasion of Georgia was part of a broader, premeditated plan to redraw the map of Europe".

"Together we must stand united against this aggression and call on you for your assistance and immediate reaction," declared President Mikheil Saakashvili. "Today the fate of Europe and the free world is unfortunately being played out in my small country. But together, we can and we must unite to meet this challenge."

As three US warships steamed towards the Georgian coast - and several European naval vessels patrolled elsewhere in the Black Sea - the EU took the diplomatic lead in a country for which the highest foreign-policy goals are membership of the western bloc and of Nato.

Georgia is the West's strongest political, military and economic ally in the Caucasus, a region wedged between the oil- and gas-rich Caspian Sea and the Black Sea outlet to the Mediterranean, and between Russia to the north and Iran and Turkey to the south. As the EU and US seek to wean themselves off Russian energy and reduce the Kremlin's dominance of its "near abroad", the strategic stakes could hardly be higher.

Germany and France, who have long soft-pedalled on Russia for fear of angering the EU's main fuel supplier, led the way in condemning the Kremlin's behaviour and demanding an immediate withdrawal of Russian troops to pre-conflict positions.

French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner was particularly strident, raising the possibility of EU sanctions on Moscow and warning that Russia could now seek to destabilise Ukraine's Crimea region and a separatist sliver of Moldova called Transdniestria.

On a visit to Ukraine, British foreign secretary David Miliband urged president Viktor Yushchenko "not to provide any pretext" for Russian action against his country, which, like Georgia, has angered Moscow by seeking to join Nato.

"When Ukraine prioritises its national interests, it goes against Russia's interests and, of course, there will be conflict," says Viktor Chumak, an analyst for Ukraine's International Centre for Policy Studies. "And Russia has broken through a psychological barrier to start this kind of war on former Soviet territory . . . Georgia had created itself in the shape of an enemy of Russia, and many in Russia already see us in the same way."

With their pro-western Rose and Orange revolutions in 2003 and 2004, Georgia and Ukraine dealt Vladimir Putin two of his most painful blows during a presidency which, fuelled by record world energy prices, restored stability and stature to Russia.

THIS RESURGENT RUSSIA, whose rulers still bristle at humiliations endured during the chaotic 1990s, has long been on a collision course with a Nato that has expanded into the Baltic, eastern Europe and the Balkans, and now has Ukraine and Georgia knocking on its door.

Saakashvili is convinced that Moscow had long planned an invasion of Georgia, either through South Ossetia or Abkhazia, to derail his country's bid to join Nato and shake the West's belief that it had a solid ally and energy transit route deep in Russia's "backyard".

Having unleashed its military might and alienated the West, some analysts think a hawkish clan around Putin, now prime minister, believe it may be expedient for Russia to further strengthen its position around the Black Sea, where its traditional sphere of influence now rubs up against Nato states or would-be members.

The restive Ukrainian region of Crimea, where a large Russian community is dissatisfied with Yushchenko's rule, has been identified as a potential flashpoint. Russian and Ukrainian nationalists regularly clash in Crimea, where Yushchenko has threatened to terminate or raise the rent on Moscow's lease of the port of Sevastopol, home to the Kremlin's powerful Black Sea naval fleet.

"We don't intend to allow troops which could be used in military action with a third or fourth country to use our territory as a base," the Ukrainian president said this week, as Russian ships from Sevastopol steamed towards the Georgian coast. "What has happened is a threat to everyone, not just for one country . . . When we allow someone to ignore the fundamental right of territorial integrity, we put into doubt the existence of any country."

Fears are also rising over the fate of Transdniestria, a wedge of land between Moldova and Ukraine, which broke away from the former following the collapse of the Soviet Union and is now propped up by Russian support, cash and peacekeepers - just like South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The day before he recognised the independence of those two regions, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev met his Moldovan counterpart, Vladimir Voronin, to warn him not to use military means to bring the rebel province back under his control.

"This is a serious warning, a warning to all," Medvedev said of events in Georgia. "And I believe we should handle other existing conflicts in this context."

In Transdniestria itself, however, separatist president Igor Smirnov used a congratulatory message to Abkhazia and South Ossetia to say it was just a matter of time before his region also won its sovereignty.

"We know for sure that your joy will become ours. Because we have a common grief, a common path and a common friend," he said, in clear reference to Russia. "It means that the result will be the same: our independence. I am sure that this prospect is rather close."

AS PRESIDENT and now premier, Vladimir Putin reasserted Russia's political and economic influence and has shown in Georgia that Moscow's military is no longer the rabble that struggled to beat Chechnya's lightly armed rebels in two wars over a decade.

"The Russians regard the Georgian episode as merely the start of a sustained campaign to restore their country's sphere of influence," says Jonathan Eyal, director of international security studies at London's Royal United Services Institute. "It is now impossible to persuade the east Europeans that a Russian threat is remote."

Any overt or covert bid by Moscow to destabilise Ukraine or Moldova would incur more diplomatic wrath and angry rhetoric from the West. But it is not clear what real leverage Washington and EU capitals have over today's confident, energy-rich Kremlin.

Ignored by the West over the US-led invasion of Iraq and February's declaration of independence by Kosovo, Russia identified Georgia as the place where it could finally back up its talk of diplomatic "red lines" with some real action, and at minimal risk to itself.

Moscow knew Nato would not ride in to rescue Georgia, and it believes that, after a period of tough talk, major EU nations such as Germany and France will realise there is too much at stake to risk a prolonged dispute with the country on which they rely for gas.

"Isolate Russia?" says Alexei Vashchenko, an expert on the Caucasus and former policy consultant to the lower house of the Russian parliament. "Who loses from that? Europe would find itself without gas, and if the Russians pull their billions out from American banks there will be a crash in the United States."

Analysts agree that eastern Europe is entering a period of deep uncertainty. In the US, president George W Bush is in his last months of power and an election campaign is gaining pace. In Europe, Russia has threatened to target Poland and the Czech Republic for agreeing to host a radar and rocket base as part of Washington's missile defence system. It remains to be seen whether deep faultlines resurface in the EU over how to treat Moscow in the weeks to come, as autumn approaches and fears grow as to whether the Kremlin will turn down Europe's heat and light.

"Naturally, all negative consequences - bursts of outrage and threats from Europe and the United States, latent displeasure from countries with ethnic problems, such as China - all these were expected," wrote Russia's Izvestia newspaper this week. "But as Russia has proved these days, threats will achieve nothing, and isolation is senseless, because it is by no means certain who needs who more."