The Russian Bush doesn't like to apologize either.
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Bush, Arriving in Baltics, Steps Into Argument With Russia
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
Published: May 6, 2005
RIGA, May 6 - President Bush stepped into the middle of an escalating fight between Russia and the Baltic nations tonight as he arrived in the capital of Latvia at the start of a difficult five-day trip to Europe.
Mr. Bush disembarked from Air Force One at Riga's airport shortly after 10 p.m. local time and went immediately to his hotel on the Daugava River across from the city's Old Town. He is scheduled to hold a news conference on Saturday with the leaders of the three Baltic nations - Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia - along with a speech on democracy. Mr. Bush is to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia outside Moscow on Sunday night.
Mr. Bush's trip, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Russian defeat of Nazi Germany with more than 50 other world leaders in Red Square on Monday, has brought forth an angry exhuming of the arguments between Russia and Eastern Europe after World War II. The Baltic nations see the anniversary as the beginning of their unlawful annexation by the Soviet Union, and today they stepped up demands that the Russians apologize for five decades of occupation.
"Once would be enough," said President Vaira Vike-Freiberga of Latvia at a news conference at Riga Castle today.The Russians have furiously responded that the three Baltic countries were allies and that the Russian military was invited to march in. "One cannot use the term 'occupation' to describe those historical events," Sergei Yastrzhembsky, the Russian ambassador to the European Union, said at a news conference in Moscow on Thursday. "At that time, the troop deployment took place on an agreed basis and with the clearly expressed agreement of the existing authorities in the Baltic republics."
Ms. Vike-Freiberga, asked in an interview with ABC News today if the Russians were lying about their history in the Baltics, responded, "Through their teeth."
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