RUSSIA:Vladimir Putin faced protests and unexpectedly tricky negotiations when he landed in Bulgaria last night on his final planned foreign trip as Russia's president.
Accompanied by Dmitry Medvedev, who he hopes will succeed him after March's election, Mr Putin landed in Sofia amid signs that his hosts had cold feet about a major energy deal that would enhance Russian influence in Bulgaria and the Balkans.
As well as signing an agreement for a Russian firm to build a €4 billion nuclear reactor on a Bulgarian stretch of the Danube river, and a trilateral deal with Greece to build a pipeline taking Russian oil from Bulgaria's Black Sea coast to the Aegean Sea, Mr Putin was expected to clinch Sofia's participation in the South Stream pipeline.
South Stream would deliver Russian gas via the Black Sea to central Europe, increasing supplies to the EU at a time when Brussels is trying to wean its members off Moscow's energy and build a rival pipeline running along a similar route, called Nabucco. Officials in Sofia say they want a majority stake in the South Stream pipeline, but Moscow suspects western states are pressuring EU- and Nato-member Bulgaria to abandon the project in favour of Nabucco.
"As soon as we start making real progress in bilateral matters [ with Bulgaria], various US state department penpushers appear and ask: 'Why do you need this'?" a Kremlin spokesman said on the eve of Mr Putin's trip.
Failure to clinch the deal would be an embarrassment to Mr Putin, who will also face several public protests during his visit - something he rarely sees at home, having cracked down on non-governmental organisations and free media during his eight years in power.
The Anna Politkovskaya Association for Freedom of Speech - named after a journalist and fierce critic of Mr Putin who was murdered in 2006 - complained that he had come to "sign off on Bulgaria's total economic dependence on Russia".
Another group said Bulgaria was becoming "a Trojan horse for Putin's oligarchy in the EU" and noted that Russian firms already owned Bulgaria's only oil refinery and provided fuel for its sole operating nuclear power plant.
Mr Putin also hopes to meet Serb officials to finalise Russia's purchase of Serbia's state oil company, NIS, despite some officials calling the price offered "humiliating".
Critics of the deal say Serbia is offering NIS to Russia at a bargain price in gratitude for its opposition to Kosovo's bid for independence. Russia said on Wednesday that it would block any attempt by Kosovo to join the UN or other international organisations. President Boris Tadic, meanwhile, said Serbia would never recognise a sovereign Kosovo and would use all "democratic" means - but not force - to prevent it breaking away.
Mr Tadic's hopes of signing a pre-accession deal with the EU this month have dwindled after the new UN war crimes prosecutor, Serge Brammertz, reiterated predecessor Carla del Ponte's demand that Serbia must first arrest war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic.
