BalticsJust days before he visits Latvia and Russia, President Bush inflamed passions in both countries yesterday with a letter acknowledging that the end of the second World War opened a grim chapter of Soviet oppression in the Baltic states.
Diplomatic sparring between Moscow and Riga has grown sharper with the approach of Mr Bush's visit this weekend to Latvia, where he will meet the three Baltic presidents, before heading to Moscow to celebrate the 60th anniversary of VE Day.
The leaders of Estonia and Lithuania declined invitations to Moscow, saying it would be inappropriate to celebrate an occasion that, in their countries, mingles happiness at the Nazis' defeat with sadness and anger over the ensuing Soviet occupation, for which the Kremlin refuses to apologise.
Latvian president Vaira Vike-Freiberga decided, after much deliberation, to go to Russia, calling it a chance to "extend the hand of friendship" to Moscow while also urging Russia "to express its regret over the post-war subjugation of central and eastern Europe." Moscow's blunt refusal to countenance such an apology has sent a fresh chill through already frosty relations with its Baltic neighbours, all of whom will have greeted Mr Bush's letter as a significant expression of support in their spat with Russia.
"I understand the difficulty of your decision on whether to attend the May 9th commemoration in Moscow," he told Ms Vike-Freiberga.
"In western Europe, the end of World War II meant liberation. In central and eastern Europe, the war also marked the Soviet occupation and annexation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and the imposition of communism."
Soviet forces occupied the Baltic states in June 1940 but were driven out by the Germans a year later. In 1944, the Soviets retook the Baltics, reincorporating them into the Soviet Union - a move for which Moscow refuses to accept responsibility.
The Yalta Conference consigned them to almost five decades of oppression, during which many thousands of Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians were deported and killed.
The presidents of the Baltic states, which joined NATO and the EU last May, hope this week's summit will lead to the US pressing Moscow to acknowledge Soviet occupation and sign long-delayed border treaties with Latvia and Estonia.
But the Kremlin is irked by the symbolic significance of Mr Bush's visit to Latvia ahead of the Moscow celebrations, and his trip to ex-Soviet Georgia afterwards.
Both countries make prickly neighbours for Russia, and Georgia - like Ukraine - is fighting free of Moscow's influence after a recent peaceful revolution. In Lithuania last month, US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice said Belarus was also ripe for change, and democracy activists from that country will be in Riga this weekend.
Russian defence minister Sergei Ivanov deflected the Baltic barbs yesterday.
"When people discuss today whether we occupied somebody or not, it makes you want to ask: 'What would have happened to you if we hadn't broken the backbone of fascism? Would your people be among the living today?' " he said.