Backdrop to G-8 summit: Russia-West tensions

A growing list of irritants, including Kosovo and Russian energy policy, may sour the meeting.

By Fred Weir | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the June 5, 2007 edition

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Moscow - Even at the height of the cold war, the shouting match between East and West was seldom cranked up to its current level.

Speaking to reporters in advance of Wednesday's Group of Eight (G-8) summit in Germany, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday slammed the US for triggering "a looming arms race" with its plan to install antimissile interceptors in Central and Eastern Europe and warned that Russia might aim a fresh generation of nuclear missiles at "new targets in Europe." Last week, Mr. Putin seemed to echo former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev when he hailed a successful Russian ballistic-missile test as a response to American "imperialism."

Some of Washington's recent rhetoric has been similarly rancorous. State Department official David Kramer last week drew up a list of alleged Kremlin offenses, including "suppression of genuine opposition, abridgement of the right to protest, constriction of civil society, and the decline of media freedom."

Behind the chilly exchanges, many experts say, is a growing belief that the West miscalculated nine years ago by inviting Russia to join the G-8, which is widely viewed as the inner sanctum for the leading shapers of global economic policy and political direction.

"It was expected that admitting Russia to the G-8 ... would induce Russia to be a helpful, responsible participant in world affairs," explains Sir Nicholas Bayne, a British former diplomat who is now with the London School of Economics.

Putin's early years bore that out, he says. But now, "Putin's political activities are not nearly as responsible as we'd hoped. Russia doesn't fit into the way the G-8 is operated.... When you move into an issue like international energy, where Russia is a key player, things get very tense, because Russia will advance its agenda at the expense of others."

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, which currently holds the rotating G-8 presidency, has indicated that she will strive to keep the summit's agenda focused on global warming and aid to Africa when the leaders of the US, Britain, France, Italy, Japan, Canada, and Russia join her in the Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm.

But experts say current tensions could come roaring to center stage over missile defense, Kosovo, Russian energy policy, the murder of Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko, or other issues from a growing list of East-West irritants.

"We're coming to this G-8 meeting in a very unpleasant atmosphere," says Pavel Mansurov, an editor at the independent Security Index journal in Moscow. "Relations are cooling fast, and problems are proliferating in many areas. It's going to be difficult for Putin."

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