Russia has ambitions
few in the west
are aware of

 
Vladimir Putin and Gerhard Schröder.
Photo: Wikipedia.org.

Text: Aage Myhre
Editor-in-Chief
aage.myhre@vilnews.com

Professor Vytautas Landsbergis continuously warns his country and the world about the Russian threat. I think these warnings sometimes are a bit excessive, but I’m also afraid that Western Europe will continue acting and thinking with their blinders and ear flaps on. Yeltsin's Russia was perhaps more or less loose tooth, but Putin's Russia is definitely not! And Putin has ambitions. Big ambitions. I have learned this over my years in his front yard. It surprises me constantly to see how little Western leaders worry.

Putin has publicly stated that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was the most tragic has happened in Russia's history. It is an attitude not only Eastern Europe should be scared of. Western Europe and the rest of the world will also be greatly influenced if Putin gets what he wants.

Energy is the weapon. This applies not least to gas, which the rest of Europe is highly dependent on. The state-owned Russian gas company Gazprom is Putin's main tool in the efforts to achieve more and more control in Europe. It is often through this company that many spies and agents are paid.

Baltic states are particularly vulnerable. These relatively poor countries are already paying 50% more for gas received from Russia than Germany does. And every time they do something to achieve independence from Russian supplies of gas, oil or electricity, Putin is ready with the finger on the switch. Ready to turn off the power, once again to make a blow to the Baltic States. Unfortunately, he has more than enough power to threaten and trump through most of the restrictions.

I put big question marks at Germany's former chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, for his roles in his native country and for Europe. Schröder cultivated very close ties to Putin, even as Chancellor, ostensibly to strengthen the "strategic partnership" between Berlin and Moscow.

Together they planned the now realized gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea, exclusively between Russia and Germany. Only a few days before he resigned as Chancellor Schröder signed the agreement without consulting with his EU counterparts, and immediately after his retirement he joined the board of the German-Russian joint venture.

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