By Adam Jasser WARSAW, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Russia's assault on Georgia has caused alarm across its former satellites in central Europe, some of whom suffered Moscow's bloody "peace restoring" interventions during the Cold War. Regional heavyweight Poland along with the ex-Soviet Baltic states issued a strongly worded declaration denouncing Moscow on Saturday and urged their European Union partners to take decisive diplomatic steps to end the fighting. The tone in most media was anti-Russian, laced with a sense of satisfaction that Russia has shown its "true colours" for all to see. "Together with the bombs falling on Georgian cities...the hope for a normal neighbour in the east has been ruined," Poland's Dziennik newspaper said in a commentary. "Those who have warned that Russia is an unpredictable partner were proven right. (Russia is) driven by neo-imperial ambitions and unable to treat neighbours, especially those who had been in its sphere of influence, as partners," it said. The EU called on Russia on Monday to halt military activity against Georgia. Its foreign ministers are due to hold an emergency meeting on the conflict on Wednesday. Russia says Georgia is the aggressor and insists its troops have not moved beyond South Ossetia and a second breakaway province, Abkhazia, which threw off Georgian rule in 1990s. DEJA VU? Many central Europeans and analysts rejected Moscow's argument that it was seeking to restore peace. Russia had been waiting for a pretext to invade in a pattern similar to Soviet interventions aimed at maintaining Moscow's grip on central Europe after World War Two, they said. "It's basically the Putin doctrine," said Svante Cornell of the Institute for Security and Development Policy in Stockholm. "Restoring Russian control over the former Soviet Union, irrespective of what those countries want, which is why this is so reminiscent of the episodes in Prague in 1968 and Budapest in 1956." Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg also compared the Russian strike inside Georgian territory to the bloody intervention in 1968 to prevent Czechoslovakia from leaving the Soviet orbit. The Soviets used tanks to crush a similar uprising in Hungary in 1956 and the threat of intervention hung over Poland's communist authorities decision to clamp down on the Solidarity movement in 1981. Memories of Soviet domination still weigh on the minds of regional leaders. Fears of falling back into its "sphere of influence" fuelled the desire to bring their nations into the EU and NATO after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. After initial detente between new Russia and its former satellites, mistrust of Moscow has returned with vengeance since Vladimir Putin became president in 2000. Putin, currently Russia's prime minister, has irked the region by glorifying the Soviet Union and issuing threats to Poland and the Czech Republic over their readiness to host U.S. anti-missile installations on their territory. Some leaders said the EU should revise its plans for a strategic partnership with Russia, vital for the EU's energy supplies. "The Russian attacks against Georgia unavoidably confront us with the task of reviewing several aspects of current cooperation between the EU and Russia," Estonian President Toomas Ilves told EU Foreign Affairs Chief Javier Solana. "Russia's military strikes in Georgia toll a knell for many of Europe's hopes, such the possibility of sharing common fundamental values with Russia." But despite the sympathy for Georgia and scorn for Russia, many commentators said President Mikhail Saakashvili had overplayed his hand in trying to regain South Ossetia. "I'm on Georgia's side," said Lech Walesa, former Polish president. "But their struggle must be carried out differently. You cannot push the beast against the wall because it can strike back." (Additional reporting by Gabriela Baczynska in Warsaw, Jan Lopatka and Michael Winfrey in Prague, Patrick Lannin in Riga and Sandor Peto in Budapest; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
A Georgian serviceman sits on a tank in Gori, some 80 km (50 miles) from Tbilisi, August 11, 2008. The simmering conflict between Russia and its small, former Soviet neighbour erupted ...
