Without taking a position on the guilt or innocence of the one-time muse of the 2004 Orange Revolution, who in October was sentenced to seven years in prison for abuse of office, supporters of the boycott want to protest against her mistreatment in prison and the repression of the opposition in the Ukraine.

Tymoshenko’s case is emblematic of the increasingly authoritarian tactics adopted by Viktor Yanukovych’s regime and the resulting damage to relations with the EU: since his election in 2010, the leader of the Party of Regions has worked steadily to bridle the opposition and increase the hold over his supporters – the Russophone community in the East of the country – over the country. At the same time he has blown hot and cold with the Ukraine’s two main neighbours, Russia and the European Union.

The former, which has the benefit of close cultural ties with Ukraine, is hoping to maintain a grip on the country that would transform it into a kind of southern Belarus, in a relationship dictated on its terms. The latter is counting on an association agreement that is now ready for signature, and the offer of a free-trade agreement, which amounts to watered down membership of the EU, to develop the bond between Ukraine and its western historic and cultural environment. Along with what is now Poland, Lithuania, and Belarus, western Ukraine formed part of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th-18th centuries, and it is hoped that the soft power which the Union is supposed to exercise over its entourage will build on this history.

The opponents of a boycott fear that such an initiative will force Kiev into the arms of Moscow. There is a risk that Ukraine may respond in this manner, but it would be acting against its own economic interests and at the same time undermining its proudly won independence. That said, most Ukrainians believe that sooner or later the future of their country will be in the EU, and Brussels must be careful not to betray this expectation.

For this reason, a boycott that results in politicians rather than teams staying away from fixtures may be the best policy, and it is one that would be made more effective if it is associated with pressure exerted by economic measures (the application of anti-money laundering legislation with regard to Ukrainian capital in the EU) and border management policies (the withholding of visas for figures in the regime responsible for abuses, but easily obtainable visas for students, researchers, businessmen and tourists), coupled with a communications campaign to explain the reasons for this response to the people of Ukraine. Finally, the EU and the OECD should flood the country with observers for next October’s general elections so as to ensure that the vote is conducted in the best possible manner.

The election comes at a key moment, says Moldovan leader writer George Damian, because –

… it is a secret for no one that Russia hopes for a government in Chişinău that will accept the presence of Russian troops in Transnistria. [...] This situation explains all the events currently affecting Moldova.

The alternative, however, would be, he concludes –

… to keep the current coalition [Alliance for European Integration, AIE] while aiming for the European Union [...] because, in spite of its problems, Moldova can join the EU in the near future [...] The Union evolves, principles are discussed, solutions are sought, but it will not disappear and Moldavia has the opportunity to join this community of States.

We must face the facts. If Europe is sending Catherine Ashton, who is as eloquent as she is powerless, on reconnaissance to Teheran; if Barack Obama has, for the past few months, responded more strongly to the Israeli challenge, it is only due to the fact that the Israelis are flexing their muscles and pretending that nothing can hold them back. Had [Israel] been as cautious as most states, Teheran would have been more likely to have quick access to the bomb. [...] In case of an emergency, it is the West that will, single-handedly, take the nuclear weapons from the hands of Iran's leaders.

It was when he ceased simply being an elected leader and segued towards a lifetime presidency. Having neatly sidestepped the rules by doing a stint as prime minister (no Russian leader can serve more than two consecutive presidential terms) Putin can now go on and on. Brezhnev did 18 years, Stalin 31. Despite the whispers of revolution lapping at the Kremlin's walls, who would bet against Vladimir matching Leonid? [...] Confronted with the spectre of an Orange Revolution, Putin has two options. He can try to assuage the demonstrators with the vague promise of liberal reforms, or he can use the same lugubriously repressive KGB tactics that have served on previous occasions: black PR against key opposition figures; arrests; and the perennial libel that his enemies are traitorous western stooges and US-backed "fifth columnists". Putin appears inclined towards the second, more thuggish, option.

And if the new tenant of the Kremlin wants to avoid a revolution, writes the Westdeutsche Zeitung, he must learn to compromise and metamorphosise from a authoritarian ruler into a pragmatic leader. Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev had criticised Putin's dilemma very aptly - 

If he does not get the better of himself and change the way he goes about things, this will end in the street. The international community ought to have some interest in seeing a Russian summer follow the Arab spring. Germany, in particular, depends on the country as a stable trading partner and supplier of raw materials. Up till now, we Germans have not had to worry about oil and gas deliveries. But do we have to face reality: the twilight of the Russian Tsar has begun.

On the same wavelength, Polish philosopher and historian of ideas Marcin Król notes in Wprost that - 

Europe – its middling political leaders, but its leaders of the past as well, who seem to have been political giants – has always wanted to see peace and tranquility prevail in Russia. That is why Putin is a perfect solution for Europe – something he is well aware of, and he is not afraid of internal opposition. In truth, Europe would support democratic development in Russia, provided that the process is peaceful, without bloodshed or turmoil in international relations. In other words, Europe would be happy to see power in Russia flow to forces that are truly democratic – but it will not lift a finger to see it happen.

That view is shared by former Moscow correspondent Arrigo Levi, who, writing in the Corriere della Sera, wonders “What must Europe do?” with Russia. Twenty years after the fall of the USSR it remains unclear if the Russians “have learned to make good use of their freedom”, to quote the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev - 

The hope that Russia would turn into a multi-party democracy overnight was perhaps a bit too optimistic [...]. It seems that the desire for reform shown so strongly in the capital of the country is not shared by the rest of this vast landmass. [...] But things being what they are, it is in the interest of Europe to maintain a stable relationship of peaceful coexistence and economic and political cooperation, whatever the conditions.

"The conditions under which Mr. Putin had to snatch back his seat in the Kremlin [...] have no doubt left a bitter taste in his mouth," writes Le Monde - 

In Moscow, he did not even win a majority of the votes. Contrary to appearances, Putin is no longer the master in his own house. For this victory he had to fight like never before. Russia has changed. The unprecedented protests that shook the capital and several major cities after the parliamentary elections of December 4 were marred by fraud reveals the awakening of a new class of citizens that the Kremlin leader will have to rely on. This new urban and informed middle class has, paradoxically, emerged and flourished under Putin. [...] If he wants [...] to modernise Russia, diversify its economy and make it a country that pulls some weight on the world stage [...] he should work with this rebellious middle class [and] show that, if Russia has changed, he too is capable of evolving.

Nonetheless, on the eve of a presidential election that will almost certainly herald Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s return to the Kremlin, such fears still persist. At a recent colloquium Taavi Roivas, President of the Estonian parliament’s European Affairs Committee, remarked that “one of the reasons that led the Estonian population to enthusiastically embrace the euro in 2011 is the fact that it amounts to a further step away from Russian influence".

Whether we like it or not, Russia will remain a crucial partner for Europe whose importance should not be underestimated. As the EU's main gas supplier, it stands to benefit from an even greater influence once the South Stream and Nord Stream pipelines come on-line. But that is not all. It is also the home country of several wealthy entrepreneurs who have invested in European businesses (football, casinos, media outlets etc.), as well as being one of the EU’s creditors. 

All of these factors will be reinforced by a further presidential mandate for Putin: Vladimir Vladimirovitch will have the means to achieve a number of projects that he has announced in recent years, like the creation of a Eurasian Union by 2015, the waiving of visa restrictions for Russians traveling abroad and a major increase in spending on the Russian military. The overwhelming likelihood is that Moscow's collaboration will be essential for future initiatives within the EU, as well as in neighbouring countries: the case of Syria, where a UN resolution has been effectively blocked by a Sino-Russian veto is a testament to this fact.

At the same time, the effectiveness of the Kremlin’s “divide and conquer tactics” is unlikely to be challenged by EU countries which have failed to agree a united response to the real or supposed military threat represented by Moscow while continuing to prioritise national energy interests over European ones.

In an article by Vladimir Putin, published by Ria Novosti at the end of February, the future president set the tone for changes to come: "Russia is an inalienable and organic part of Greater Europe and European civilization. Our citizens think of themselves as Europeans. […]. That is why Russia proposes moving toward the creation of a common economic and human space from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean – a community that Russian experts refer to as "the Union of Europe".

In response to such ambitions, Europe would do well to set aside the mistrust and disdain that have marked relations in the past. With Putin’s re-election, Europe will have to contend with an ambitious Russia which has the resources to realise its projects. With this in mind it should be treated as an equal partner.

The Berlin daily is referring to a bill that the Estonian Minister of Defence is hoping to have adopted in March. According to the text, all those who took part in the fight against the Soviet Union during the Second World War will be granted the status of “freedom fighters,” which includes Estonian members of the SS.

Previous attempts to push through the bill failed in 2006 and on 2010. This time around, "majority support appears to guaranteed,” reports TAZ. The Russian embassy in Tallinn has described the bill as “blasphemous,” while the German Green Party has criticised a "retrospective justification of the atrocities perpetrated by Hitler’s henchmen in the Soviet Union."

Poles from the Pomeranian and Warmian-Masurian provinces, in turn, will no longer need a Russian visa to go to the Kaliningrad Region to buy petrol, for example, much cheaper there than in Poland, rejoices Gazeta Wyborcza.

All this thanks to an agreement on small cross border movement which is to be signed in Moscow on December 14 by the foreign ministers of Russia and Poland. "Russian diplomacy can claim that this Moscow's first tangible success in relations with the EU. It's been years since Russia signed any deal with the EU [...] dialogue between us has so far been mainly ritual", a Polish diplomat told the Warsaw daily.

Meanwhile Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov expressed hope that the agreement would “herald completely visa-free movement between Russia and the EU".

However, this election will mark the beginning of a new phase of Vladimir Putin’s power. After a number of years of uncertainty as to whether the "moderniser" Dmitri Medvedev or the imperial Putin would emerge as the main architect of Russia’s future, it is now clear that the current Prime Minister and former president will almost certainly become president again next March – a development that will of course have consequences for the EU.

In founding Saint Petersburg, further west than the Moscow of the tsars, Peter the Great wanted to anchor Russia to Europe. Three centuries later, the Saint Petersburger Putin appears to be orchestrating a shift in the opposite direction.

For many people, the project for a Eurasian Union that he presented on 4 October sounds like a desire to recreate a kind of USSR, 20 years after its collapse – an event that Putin has described as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century. In practice, it will extend the customs union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan to other former Soviet republics like Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and perhaps even to Ukraine if Kiev chooses to turn to Moscow instead of the EU.

However, this Eurasian Union goes beyond simple nostalgia. It highlights Putin’s desire to establish Russia as a continental power, halfway between a Europe that he no longer considers to be a partner on a level with Asia, which can provide him with markets for gas and oil and a base from which to deploy an alternative global diplomacy. For the Kremlin, China, Iran, India and Afghanistan offer more interesting opportunities than the crisis stricken states of the EU, which have long been divided on the issue of the attitude they should have towards Russia.

At the same time, Russia has not completely abandoned its western flank. It is increasingly present in Ukraine – a country that Europe is failing to anchor to its sphere of influence. It also keeps Belarus under an economic supervision that facilitates the survival of Alexander Lukashenko’s dictatorial regime – a defeat for European values. Finally, it is also preparing to deploy ballistic missiles in Kaliningrad, the Russian exclave between Poland and Lithuania. So although it may be turning towards Asia, Russia will continue to be a problem for Europe.

But there is no reason why this has to be the case. European states cannot eternally treat Russia as a neighbour that is not to be trusted. Vladimir Putin, who appears to know what he wants, will certainly in power for a long time to come, and the advantage of the duration of his reign is that it should give the European Union time to work out what it wants in its turn. Europe should define a firm and open policy towards Moscow. If it does not, it will be marginalised yet again.

The product of an industrial partnership between the Russian gas giant and major European energy companies (E.ON, BASF, GDF Suez, Gasunie), Nord Stream is nonetheless a highly political project, remarks the daily, which points out that “its route is an act of defiance towards Poland and the three Baltic States: passing under the Baltic is a snub to four EU member states”. Also present in the Euro-Russian South Stream consortium, which will skirt around Ukraine, Gazprom “has yet to get rid of its image as an armed wing of the Russian state”, adds Le Monde.

However, as Newsweek Polska points out, Russian Prime Minister “Vladimir Putin is wrong if he thinks he can dictate European politics by means of the pipe line running under the Baltic Sea”. It will rather be the West that – thanks to the Nord Stream – will gain influence over Kremlin policies. Why? Because German as well as Russian companies have one goal in mind: “the domination of the European gas market”. Gazprom’s plans are ambitious and far-reaching, it wants to conquer French and British markets as well as deliver gas to Austria and the Balkans via the planned South Stream pipeline. This, however, will make Russia more and more “dependent on cooperation with the European business” and more inclined, though reluctantly, to comply with EU regulations.

For the daily, the loans from countries like China, Russia and perhaps Norway and the IMF, channelled through a “Special Purpose Vehicle”, may help beef up the European Financial Stability Facility, which could get as big as two trillion euros. This solution would not have to be approved by the German Parliament, which would come as “a relief” to Angela Merkel, remarks Expansión. “Some analysts are worried”, however, “that this money would be coming from countries like China and Russia,” which could be looking for political gain, the paper concludes.

“Europe’s dependency on Gazprom grows”, worries GW, warning that by the end of the year Gazprom will start pumping gas through Nord Stream pipeline to Germany and may soon seal its “gas monopoly” in Central Europe with the construction of the South Stream  pipeline. "Where is the big surprise?", wonders Die Presse. "For the time being, every alternative is too expensive. Climate policy forces to shut down coal power stations and the Fukushima disaster tempered the 'nuclear renaissance'".

Those are some of the readings of the times emerging from the book 1968: as the Russians Saw It, edited by the Czech historian Josef Pazderka, which is giving the Czechs their first glimpse of how the Soviets saw the Prague Spring and its abrupt conclusion. “Today, it’s not about demonising Russia,” writes Euroskop, “but it’s best to remain cautious towards a country that remains incapable of reflecting on the occupation of 1968. Even among the Russian intelligentsia, the myth that Czechoslovakia was rescued from a second German aggression continues to find fertile ground.”

The daily Mladá fronta DNES reveals in turn that parts of Soviet society, notably intellectuals and dissidents, followed the events in Czechoslovakia in 1968 closely in the hope that the Prague Spring would spread to the USSR. “For them,” writes the Prague daily, “the military intervention marked the ideological break with the Communist system.”

"Just a few months later, Gorbachev resigned,” explains the editorial of the Swiss daily, which notes that "it is tempting to draw parallels between the Arab Spring and the fall of communism. In each case there was a surge in the aspiration for freedom in an ossified political system. The end of the Soviet era and the Arab revolutions both gave the impression that history had been suddenly reawakened after a prolonged ice age."

Finally the Swiss daily examines differing perceptions of the last Soviet leader in the west and in the former USSR: “They do not perceive Gorbachev to be a hero for the cause of freedom, as we do. Today, we do not perceive the Muslim Brotherhood, who are mobilising in Cairo, to be a genuine force for freedom. Is there perhaps a lesson from history here?”

The sanction against Lukoil comes at a time of tension in the energy sector between Russia and Bulgaria, two countries that are nonetheless close on this issue, particularly on the question of the payment, by Russia, for the construction of the Belene nuclear power plant and on the progress of the Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline.

This is a legitimate claim because the emerging countries are under-represented in international organisations. At the IMF, for example, the BRICS account 

for 11.06% of voting rights while representing 20% of global GDP. Europe accounts for 35.6% of voting rights and just over 30% of global GDP (the United States represents 16.08% of voting rights and nearly 30% of world GDP). If the voting rights/economic weight ratio is unfair to the BRICS, and if a reform is desirable, it is nevertheless true that Europe constitutes the most influential bloc within the IMF.

There is therefore no reason for Europe to give up the fight to maintain control of this very strategic post, especially at a time when several European countries have been or are still negotiating aid packages. But for this to happen Europe must, once again, speak with a single voice and propose the candidate that best defends its interests. If Europe wants to avoid having the IMF once again appear as the baleful guardian of free-market orthodoxy, it had best choose a candidate possessed of sensitivity and creativity so as to diminish, as much as possible, the bitter taste of the medicine it will have to administer.

Meanwhile Polish state railways (PKP) hope to join the Russian project although officials admit no “talks” have been held on the subject. Gazeta Wyborcza ponders the “economic sense” of the new railway links, stressing the fact that according to estimates, “railway could be competitive on distances up to 750 km” (on longer hauls planes remain cheaper). The distance from Moscow to Berlin is over 1600 km. Hence there must be other reasons for the new railway connections with the West. “Russians want to show they have money and they are not afraid of investing in infrastructure”, explains Adrian Furgalski, director of the Railway Business Forum.

The intervention in Libya was justified by the humanitarian necessity to defend civilians from massacres promised by Colonel Gaddafi. But the credibility of this argument has been undermined by the indifference shown by Europe vis-à-vis Arab countries where popular revolts have been violently repressed, such as Yemen or Bahrain, where the EU envoy explained away the firing of live bullets at the demonstrators by police by saying "in situations like this, accidents happen."

The reason for these double standards is simple: the Libyan crisis and the nuclear incident at Fukushima – which Germany responded to without consulting its European partners, deeply embarrassing them – has already led to soaring oil prices. The unused oil capacity of Saudi Arabia is now the last bulwark against a shock. The stability of the repressive regime in Riyadh and its satellites must be preserved, even at the cost of losing face.

As noted by the Financial Times, Russia is doing well out of this double crisis. The country has seen its oil income coffers bloat up and has proposed to increase its gas exports to Japan and Europe to compensate for the nuclear plants that have been shut down. And while the European Nabucco pipeline sits stalled, its Russian rival, South Stream, continues to cover ground. In the eternal tussle for eastern Europe, anything that strengthens Moscow weakens Brussels.

The EU has expended huge sums on building its External Action Service and on funding partnerships in the east and south, but its energy dependence is preventing it from practising a coherent and unconstrained foreign policy. To break the impasse, it must step back for the long view. Unfortunately for Brussels, the only people who have that broader view are the lobbyists for the oil industry, which is comfortable with the status quo.