Bush says Cold War captivity one of great wrongs

US President George W. Bush denounced Soviet Cold War rule of eastern Europe as "one of the greatest wrongs of history" yesterday in a jab at Moscow two days before celebrations of the 1945 victory over Hitler.

Bush, visiting Latvia before the ceremonies in Moscow marking 60 years since the end of World War Two in Europe, also held up the three Baltic states as examples of democratic reform since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

He said the end of the war brought liberty from fascism for many in Germany but meant the "iron rule of another empire" for the Baltic states - Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia - and nations from Poland to Romania. Bush admitted the United States shared some responsibility for the Cold War division of Europe after the 1945 Yalta accord between Russia, the United States and Britain.

"Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable," he said. "Yet this attempt to sacrifice freedom for the sake of stability left a continent divided and unstable.

"The captivity of millions in central and eastern Europe will be remembered as one of the greatest wrongs of history," he said in a speech at Riga's guildhall.

The three Baltic states joined both NATO and the European Union last year.

Bush's visit to Riga has angered Russia by reviving tensions about the Soviet occupation when Moscow is focusing on celebrating the end of World War II, a conflict that cost 27 million Soviet lives.

Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed calls by the Baltic states for an apology for Soviet rule and accused them yesterday of trying to cover up past Nazi collaboration.

The differing versions of history may make for frictions when Bush meets Putin in Moscow today and tomorrow.

Putin insists the Red Army was a liberator, not an oppressor, of Eastern Europe.

"Our people not only defended their homeland, they liberated 11 European countries," Putin said yesterday after laying a wreath at a monument to Russia's war dead.

In a recent state of the nation speech he bemoaned the demise of the Soviet Union as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century". He has also said Washington should not try to export its own brand of democracy.