Putin stands alone in support for candidate

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- Increasingly, Russian President Vladimir Putin walks alone.

He has alarmed the West with authoritarian policies at home. He announced last week that Russia was developing new nuclear missiles. And now he has embraced the official outcome of a Ukrainian election that Western observers say was rigged.

When he arrives in The Hague for a summit with the European Union today, Putin is bound to be in for a chilly reception.

The meeting, postponed earlier this month, comes days after he set the stage for sharp confrontation with the West by congratulating Viktor Yanukovych as the winner of Ukraine's bitterly disputed presidential vote.

Putin's gesture, which capped an unabashed campaign of support for his favored candidate in a country at the crossroads of Russian and Western interests, was the latest in a long line of statements, actions and policies that have dismayed and alienated Europe and the United States.

His move to legitimize an election result widely viewed abroad as fraudulent will add to their already persistent growing concerns about where he is leading his own country.

When many in the West look at Russia, they see a bleak political landscape painted in Putin's bold brushstrokes: a parliament seemingly manipulated at will by the Kremlin; regional governors no longer elected but appointed directly by Putin; a media that hews closely to the government line; a prominent business leader who challenged Putin thrown into prison.

EU concerns about a drift toward authoritarianism have hampered efforts to forge a new "strategic partnership" agreement with Russia.

Europe is demanding that Russia pledge adherence to what it says must be the "common values" of Europe.

Putin said Tuesday that it was important "to avoid creating new dividing lines between us and Europe," but there is increasing concern in the EU that by strengthening control over Russia at the expense of democracy and supporting heavy-handed leaders in former Soviet republics, the Russian leader is throwing up new divisions -- or even rebuilding a Cold War curtain.

Some of Putin's recent statements give off the chilling air of that era.

Last week he boasted that Russia is developing new nuclear missiles he stressed no other nation would have for years. After the Beslan hostage-taking tragedy he darkly suggested that terrorists plotting to tear Russia apart had Western sympathy or support.

But while such statements are meant at least partly for hawks at home, Putin's involvement in the Ukraine election is likely to be the most serious test yet of his ties with the West.

By supporting the establishment candidate in Ukraine -- where the United States and Europe are actively promoting a seminal shift to a more open, democratic society, in part as a buffer to his newly assertive Russia -- Putin is taking his challenge of the West to a new level.