Yalta is a thing of the past

According to the Gazeta Wyborcza, the summit meeting demonstrated a swing of opinion: "The Old Europe has begun to view Russia with its second, eastern eye. ... The large countries used to see Russia as a trading partner, an energy supplier and a world power that can (and does) help Europe in Africa, Afghanistan and in the struggle with Iran. We, the nations from behind the former Iron Curtain, saw things differently. For us Russia is a threat - capable of extortion through missiles and trade embargoes. With the invasion in Georgia, Russia has shown the West its darkest side, in which hardly anyone in Berlin or Paris believed. The Germans and the French had heard of such an aggressive Russia from the Poles, Latvians and Lithuanians, but they had explained these accounts away with a reference to our troubled past. Now they believe them. Nicolas Sarkozy said after the summit that a return to the policy of zones of influence is unacceptable, and that Yalta is a thing of the past. These words will resound in the Kremlin for a long time to come."

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