Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

With Anna Politkovskaya still fresh in her grave, one of the most repulsive spectacles of the year took place on Wednesday in Munich when the oleaginous thug who now rules Russia, Vladimir Putin, was welcomed to Bavaria by the state's leader, Edmund Stoiber. The same honour guard of men and women dressed in 18th-century agrarian outfits that was wheeled out last month to welcome the Pope was paraded to greet Putin. Plus ca change… Then, to round off an eerie occasion, a phalanx of hirsute types wearing Alpinist outfits fired antiquated blunderbusses into the air. Honest. Although not known for his sense of humour, Putin must have smiled at all this and he'll return the favour, no doubt, when the Bavarians are next in Moscow by arranging a parade of neo-boyars before holding a beard-trimming ceremony. Surrealism must be matched by surrealism.

Farcical folk theatre aside, this is all about doing deals with the gangsters and war lords who now control Russia's resources. But the oil and gas contracts that Germany is making with Putin's people are dubious and will not provide much warmth when the crunch comes next year, or in 2010 or whenever Russia takes its next lurch towards totalitarianism. Remember what happened last year to the Ukraine? In that crisis, Russia tried to cut-off supplies of natural gas to Kiev while at the same time pumping it to its European clients through pipelines that ran through the country. What a dismal omen. And having flattened Chechnya, Russia is now eager to crush Georgia, which has had the temerity to challenge the bully. Bet you those European countries that crow about human rights will shut up fast when the choice is between frost and freedom. Except it won't be that easy to get off the hook.

Writing in yesterday's OpinionJournal, Mikheil Saakashvili, the President of Georgia, noted: "Georgia poses no physical threat to Russia — how could a nation of less than five million souls challenge a nuclear-armed power over 30 times its size?" And he went on to add that, "The values that hold together the international order are like a chain — only as strong as its weakest link. To jeopardize or neglect this link implies peril for the entire trans-Atlantic community." That last sentence was certainly aimed in the direction of Berlin. All this reminds one, of course, of Evelyn Waugh and The Sword of Honour:

"He had opened the morning newspaper on the headlines announcing the Russian-German alliance. News that shook the politicians and young poets of a dozen capital cities brought deep peace to one English heart… Now, splendidly, everything had become clear. The enemy at last was plain in view, huge and hateful, all disguise cast off. It was the Modern Age in arms."

Yes, that was then. But this is now.