Notwithstanding the fact that the European Union finds Latvia's and Estonia's legislation on citizenship, language, and education fully in compliance with the EU's criteria, Moscow continually attacks these Baltic states in international forums -- as well as though propagandizing to local Russians -- to pressure Latvia and Estonia into changing that legislation. It hopes that preserving and codifying those ethnically-based societal divisions would provide scope for manipulation of these countries' internal politics.
A distinct variation on Moscow's strategy can be observed in Belarus, as well as in the satrapies of Transdniester in Moldova and Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia. While in other countries of the region, Russia is an anti-status-quo power, seeking to roll back democratic gains, in these places, Russia is a status-quo power, defending the dictatorships. Although the dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka of Belarus irritates President Vladimir Putin and the Russian government by milking Russia's economy, the Kremlin is content to subsidize the loyal dictatorship, and rallies to its defense in international forums.
The Kremlin's solidarity with those dictatorships is on every-day display, in a common antidemocratic front. When President Putin congratulated Ukraine's presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych a few days ago on his phony "victory," Mr. Lukashenka followed suit immediately. So did Igor Smirnov of Transdniester.
[Continuing] It is a measure of Western incomprehension or obliviousness that, even after such moves, Mr. Smirnov's Russian-armed regime is still considered by U.S. diplomats and the European Union as eligible for legalization and official empowerment in a "federalized" Moldova.
Thes rest of the article tells of Putin's conspiracies against other former Soviet areas.
I keep telling you guys: NEVER, NEVER, NEVER trust the Russians.
PUTIN is KGB, then, now, and until he dies -- and probably also in his afterlife in Hell.