CIS:Some CIS members want to follow the Baltic states and escape Russia's grip, writes Daniel McLaughlin
Wistful glances were cast westward at yesterday's Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) summit in Belarus, as the president of more than one former Soviet republic wished he was spending the day instead with Nato leaders in neighbouring Latvia. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were the only three Soviet republics that did not join the CIS after the collapse of Moscow's empire, and this week's summit in Riga was hailed as further proof that, as new members of Nato and the European Union, the Baltic states were finally free of the Kremlin's vice-like grip.
But for their former comrades, real independence has been harder to attain, and Russia's pre-eminence in the post-Soviet region has rendered the CIS a dismal talking shop, a place to raise a desultory glass of bubbly to whatever Moscow wants to do.
Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, once referred to the CIS as a civilised form of divorce, a forum for the recalibration of relationships after the trauma of Soviet collapse.
But it was inevitable that a time would come when some countries, like the Baltic states, would stir from their post-communist hangover and wonder whether it wasn't time to cut the Kremlin's apron strings and strike out in another direction.
Georgia and Ukraine did it with rose- and orange-coloured revolutions, and were joined by Moldova in openly striving for a future under the flags of Nato and the EU.
Ukraine's westward dash has been slowed by the election of a Moscow-friendly prime minister, but the West is still keen to lure all three countries from the Kremlin's orbit, and US president George Bush reiterated yesterday that the Nato door was open to newcomers. But Mother Russia's apron strings are stronger than most, and she won't let her satellites drift away without a fight.
Moscow has banned imports of Georgian water and wine, and cut transport and postal links with the country, initially in response to the brief detention last month of four Russian servicemen on suspicion of espionage; furthermore, several hundred Georgians living in Russia have been deemed illegal immigrants and sent home.
Meanwhile, as the mercury drops, Ukraine and Moldova are remembering how Russia turned off the gas taps last winter to force them to pay more for fuel, a tactic that sent shivers through central and western Europe and sparked energy security fears that are surely on the agenda for Nato leaders who continue their talks today.
Encouraged by the West, CIS members are increasingly making deals that bypass Moscow.
Azerbaijan has agreed to provide energy to Georgia through the winter, reducing Russia's leverage over a Tblisi that sent its parliamentary speaker to Riga, while its president endured the CIS bash in Minsk.
Even Belarus - dubbed "the last dictatorship in Europe" by Washington, but prized by Russia as a loyal buffer with the EU and Nato - is voicing dissent, responding to Moscow's threats of an energy price rise by mooting an alliance with Ukraine and oil-rich Azerbaijan, which might reduce the Kremlin's negotiating power.
If the likes of Ukraine and Georgia did leave the CIS - and Tblisi has openly threatened to do so - Russia would be left to preside over an increasingly obscure organisation that rewarded with membership brutal dictatorships like Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and failing states like Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
But for as long as the oil- and gas-rich Middle East is volatile, and Russia has its own enormous reserves of both, Nato and the EU will tread carefully with the Kremlin.