Russia Does Soft Power, Too

The Telegraph reports some of the efforts of Russia to reassert its influence in its former republics:

The Kremlin quickly recognized the importance of [Moldovan President] Voronin’s regime to Russia’s interests and worked hard to deny support to those who might challenge him from the West. In Georgia, Moscow is provid-ing nonintrusive, soft-power support such as extensive media coverage to the array of opposition groups that seek to dethrone Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.

With the Ukraine presidential election due in six months, Moscow has no preferred candidate among the two most likely to reach the sec-ond round - Yulia Tymoshenko and Viktor Yanukovych.

It will not repeat the mistakes of its 2004 embrace of Yanukovych. The message from the Kremlin is: “We support pro-Russian positions, not candidates, and we will judge by deeds, not campaign promises.”

And arguably, they're doing it better than we are. Watch for an uptick in Russian efforts in Ukraine as elections get closer, and a spike if the results don't go Moscow's way.