The EU has signed numerous agreements with Russia including one for a "common space" for freedom and justice. The Kremlin is very good at feigning such idealism. Its control of Eastern Europe was always enforced on the basis of "friendship treaties," and the Soviet invasions of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 were "fraternal" missions.
But look how Putin abuses that "common" space: barbaric treatment of Chechens, the businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky jailed, foreign NGO's hounded, a co-leader of last year's Orange Revolution, Yuliya Tymoshenko, indicted by Russian military prosecutors on trumped-up charges. If Europeans are serious about human rights and freedoms, they must recognize that those values are not shared by Putin's Kremlin.
The same is true of viewing Russia as an ally in the fight against terrorism. Is it really conceivable that the homeland of the "Red Terror" with countless unpunished crimes from the Soviet era, and which bears traces of blood from Lithuania to the Caucasus, will provide reliable help in stopping Iran and North Korea from threatening the world? It seems more likely that the Kremlin's cold minds will merely exploit each crisis as an opportunity to increase their destructive power and influence.
For decades, my region of Europe was left to the mercy of evil. So I cannot sit back in silence as Europe stumbles blindly into a new appeasement. We, the new democracies of Eastern Europe, have been taught by our legacy that behind Russia's every diplomatic act lurks imperial ambition.
Western Europeans, who have been spared this legacy, should heed our warnings. Dependence on Russia -- even if its face is now that of the allegedly "charismatic" Gerhard Schroeder -- will only lead to an abyss.
Vytautas Landsbergis, independent Lithuania's first president, is a European parliamentarian.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
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