"Dangerous gulf" opens between Russia and West

By Michael Stott - Analysis

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The West's pillorying of Moscow over last month's invasion of Georgia has kindled a fierce Russian resentment that poses dangers for security in Europe and in trouble spots beyond.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice lectured Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov during a United Nations gathering in New York, telling him Russia was now isolated. Lavrov countered that his appointment book for the meeting had never been fuller.

Behind the studiedly gentle riposte lay a sense, echoed on the streets in Russia, that the West was not granting resurgent Russia the respect it feels it merits. Animosities ascribed in earlier times to ideological schism between communism and capitalism are proving hardier than many might have expected.

Russia's sense of grievance over the Georgian war stems from Western governments' unwillingness to acknowledge publicly what many say privately -- that Tbilisi started the conflict.

Adding insult to injury for the Russians is strong Western support for Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili -- loathed by Moscow -- and Western media coverage which has overwhelmingly favored Georgia during the conflict.

"Never in the past quarter century have Russia and the West differed so much over the interpretation of the same event," wrote political commentator Georgy Bovt in an opinion piece entitled "Divorce with the West" on the gazeta.ru news site.

"Never before has the behavior of Russia been presented in Western media in such a diametrically opposite way to the way that behavior is perceived in Russian public opinion."

Further stoking resentment is a string of recent Western moves seen as hostile by Moscow.

In Russian eyes, the West snubbed it by recognizing the independence of Kosovo, ignored its objections to a U.S. anti-missile system in eastern Europe, didn't listen to its criticism of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and broke a promise made to Moscow in the 1990s not to expand NATO to its borders.

Now Russia's patience has snapped.

RUSSIA LOST

Top diplomats stationed in Moscow privately despair over how, as one put it, "we have lost Russia completely over Georgia." Even normally pro-Western intellectuals and their own Russian embassy employees had turned against them.

"There's no one in this society who sees things our way," one senior Western diplomat commented.

"Russians are reacting to 18 years of condescension and being ignored by the West. They have had enough."

President Dmitry Medvedev summarized the changed public mood in his remarks at a meeting with Western analysts on September 12.