Backdrop to G-8 summit: Russia-West tensions

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

from the June 5, 2007 edition

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As he prepared to embark for Europe, President George Bush seemed anxious to tone things down. "My personal message to Vladimir Putin is, there's no need to try to revive the cold war. It's over," he said.

But complicating the outlook is growing uncertainty over who will succeed Putin when his second term expires early next year.

Three G-8 leaders who enjoyed tight relations with Putin – former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, German ex-chancellor Gerhard Schröder, and former French president Jacques Chirac – are gone, and their successors are cooler toward Russia. And this will be the last G-8 summit for a leader who staunchly favored rapprochement with Russia, Britain's Tony Blair. Moscow's ties with London have soured since the fatal poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko, followed by Britain's denied request to extradite ex-KGB agent Andrei Lugovoi from Russia and charge him with the crime.

Another potential spoiler is Kosovo, the mainly Albanian-populated Serbian province wrested away by NATO in a 1999 war. The Western consensus is that Kosovo should be helped along the path to independence, but Russia, a traditional ally of Serbia, has warned that independence for Kosovo could lead to a wave of breakouts by secessionist statelets around the former Soviet Union and beyond. "Russia has a different position on this, which the West just does not understand," says Alexei Makarkin, deputy director of the Center for Political Technologies, an independent Moscow think tank.

On Monday, Ms. Merkel said the issue is likely to be aired at Heiligendamm. "We must determine ... how much latitude still exists," she told Der Spiegel. "I believe time is of the essence here. We must make a decision soon."

Putin has also reacted coldly to Western criticisms of his human rights record, which he and Merkel publicly tussled over at last month's Russia-European Union meeting.

"The United States today is the main violator of freedoms and human rights on a global scale," he charged Saturday. "There are also grievances toward France, Great Britain, and Germany."

Experts say the East-West balance on a common energy policy, opening Russia to foreign investment, and a joint approach to Iran's nuclear ambitions, looks as vexed as ever. Some say friendly disagreement may be Heiligendamm's best outcome. "There is no doubt that there is a crisis in Russia's relationship with other G-8 countries," says Olivier Giscard D'Estaing, a former member of the French parliament. But, he says, there is no substitute for dialogue. "We need to keep Russia engaged."

• Mariah Blake contributed to this story from Hamburg, Germany.

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