Dealing with Russia

: Dmitri Medvedev’s debut on the international stage at the G8 summit will be scrutinised at home, even more than it is abroad. If nationalists believe that Vladimir Putin, and he alone, put Russia back on the map as a world power, his successor must show that he is just as tough and independent. The youngest man at the summit has to show he is strong and he will not do that by cuddling up to the likes of Gordon Brown.

There were few signs that he did when the two men met for the first time yesterday. Call, as each man might, for a new era, they are still left with concrete, unresolved problems left over from the old one... The European debate about Russia vacillates between accommodation and confrontation. To accommodate Russia is to turn a blind eye to the values which lie at the heart of the European project — democratic elections, rule of law, respect for human rights, each of which have suffered painful reverses under Putinism. To confront Russia risks making a bad relationship worse. So, while the EU vacillates in its post-modern way, unable to make up its mind, Russia, in distinctly pre-modern style, divides and rules...

Excerpted from a leader in ‘The Guardian’