Vilnius---A quarter-century after Lithuania's split from the Soviet Union, the architect of the Baltic state's independence Vytautas Landsbergis has warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin's brand of imperialism risks new wars in Europe.
But Landsbergis also evokes a very different Russia under Putin's predecessor, the late Boris Yeltsin.
His "era was exceptional. Russia didn't want to be an aggressive empire... he treated our freedom favourably," Landsbergis told AFP of the reform-minded Yeltsin who was president 1991-99.
"The democratic world has not yet fully comprehended the shift that happened under 15 years of Putin's rule," said Landsbergis, post-Soviet Lithuania's first head of state.
"Since 2000, history should recognise a new period, called 'Putin wars'. And this is only the beginning," the 82-year-old warned in an interview in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.
An EU and NATO member since 2004, Lithuania on Wednesday marks 25 years since it became the first Soviet republic to declare independence in 1990, followed swiftly by Baltic neighbours Estonia and Latvia.
The breakaway republic played a key role in the demise of the Soviet Union in December 1991, whose collapse Putin once described as the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe" of the 20th century.
Accusing Putin of pursuing an "open programme to restore the Soviet empire" Landsbergis points to Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region as evidence of his designs.
- 'Exceptional era' -
The Soviets annexed the three Baltic states during World War II. The Stalinist-era deportation of hundreds of thousands of their people to Siberia and Central Asia left deep wounds.
The trio remained solidly under Moscow's thumb until Kremlin leader Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985. He began economic and political reforms that were to spiral out of control.
Lithuania's declaration of independence on March 11, 1990, rattled not only the Kremlin but also many outsiders in the West who were seeking to keep Gorbachev in power.
Gorbachev is still widely revered in the West, but for Landsbergis he was a "straggler" who only wanted to "preserve an empire", and was responsible for bloody 1991 assaults by Soviet forces.
Fourteen civilians died and hundreds were injured when Soviet troops attacked the Vilnius television tower on January 13, 1991, part of Moscow's failed attempts to smother the independence movement.
Unlike Gorbachev, as Russian president Yeltsin accepted Baltic independence and signed a treaty recognising Lithuania's sovereignty in July 1991.
"It is unique in Russia's history to think that neighbours were not suppressed but allowed in a friendly way to live how they wanted," Landsbergis said of the Yeltsin-era.
Unpopular and blamed for the economic meltdown of the 1990s in his motherland, Yeltsin was posthumously awarded the highest Lithuanian honour in 2012.
- 'NATO gestures' -
While Putin failed to prevent the Baltic states from joining the EU and NATO, he revived their fears as his newly assertive Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 and sliced Crimea away from Ukraine last year.
Putin then reportedly warned Ukraine's new President Petro Poroshenko that Russian troops could invade Baltic, Polish and Romanian capitals within two days if ordered.
Landsbergis told AFP it was "very likely" that Russia could test NATO in the Baltic states with undercover or so-called hybrid war tactics which may not qualify as an armed attack that would automatically trigger collective defence.
AFP
