Baltic borders and the war. Frontier justice

Why Russia's borders with the Baltic countries remain disputed

THE fighting stopped 60 years ago, but the war still produces lively rows. Estonia and Lithuania are boycotting next week's shindig in Moscow. Latvia's president, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, is going only to question Russia's interpretation of history. This is as follows. The Baltic three were annexed in 1940 by the Soviet Union “according to international law at the time”; then conquered by the Nazis; and then liberated by the heroic Red Army.

For the Balts, this is topsy-turvy. Far from being legal, their annexation stemmed from the 1939 Nazi-Soviet pact, which divided Europe between the two. The Red Army's arrival in 1945 was less a liberation than the replacement of one murderous occupation by another. If anything, the Soviet one was worse (though not for Baltic Jews). The re-establishment of pre-war independence in 1991 was a miracle, not a catastrophe.

What the Balts want is for Russia to be like Germany, apologising and paying compensation to victims of totalitarianism. That is fanciful. Far from being penitent, Russia is becoming more nostalgic for the Soviet Union. One aide to Mr Putin calls the Baltic view of history “blasphemous”. Russia prefers to complain about Soviet-era Russian-speaking migrants to the Baltic, who mostly have to pass a language exam for citizenship.

All of this is holding back ratification of the Estonian and Latvian border treaties with Russia. These mark the Balts' renunciation of some strips of pre-war territory taken by Russia during the Soviet era. Although they were agreed on years ago, Russia has put off signing in the hope of extracting more concessions or impeding the Baltic countries' entry to the European Union and NATO. The Russians had planned to sign the Latvian treaty on May 10th. Yet when the Latvians issued a declaration saying that accepting the Soviet-era border with Russia did not mean they had backed down on other issues, such as compensation for former Gulag inmates, the Kremlin cancelled the signing.

Latvia may have been unwise. Estonia, which Russia has invited to sign its treaty on May 18th, has issued no declaration. One sympathetic official says that the Balts suffer from “political Tourette's syndrome” on Russia, “coming out with random insults in public and being unaware of the effects”. Some think the Balts should all have gone to Moscow. That was the decision taken by Poland, which has a similar view of history. “Russia wants to make out that the Baltic states are in some different category from the rest of the European Union,” says an official. “So providing any evidence for this is ill-advised.”

The EU is largely unhelpful, even though all three Baltic states joined last year. EU officials see the border treaties as bilateral matters. There is little solidarity among the Balts, either. Steely Mrs Vike-Freiberga gets on badly with Estonia's Arnold Ruutel, an old-style bureaucrat, and Lithuania's doddery Valdus Adamkus. The inability to agree on a common line over going to Moscow highlighted this lack of trust - and the success of Russia's policy of divide and, perhaps, rule again.

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