Messages to Putin

In the wake of the EU's "diplomatic soft touch" during Putin's visit to Paris last week, it would seem that the messages to the Russian leader are different, depending on who voices them.

"The recent events in Ukraine have made people everywhere understand that taking to the streets gets the authorities' attention," says Tatiana Poloskova, deputy director of the independent Institute of Modern Diaspora, which studies Russian minorities in former Soviet countries.

So reports Fred Weir, Moscow correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor.

Georgian President Mikhael Saakashvili and newly inaugurated Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko were clearly addressing their former Soviet colleagues last month when they hailed their revolts as the leading edge of "a new wave of liberation that will lead to the final victory of freedom and democracy on the continent of Europe."

Hopefully, the members of the "peace camp" will try to avoid tumult and chaos, and try to talk the opposition into "constructive talks" with their respective countries' strongmen, as well of the region's strongman, aka Vladimir Putin.

(Spasiba to Grigori Schreiberski)