A series of bitter disputes between former Iron Curtain countries and Moscow was threatening last night to wreck an EU-Russia summit intended to modernise relations and improve regional security.

Poland, smarting over a Russian ban on Polish meat exports, has neutered the main objective of the two-day meeting by vetoing talks on a new partnership treaty between Moscow and Brussels. Lithuania has backed Warsaw after becoming increasingly frustrated at the closure of a main oil pipe-line through Russia. Estonia is also demanding a tough stance after a row over Soviet war memorials that led to days of rioting in Tallinn.

Germany, which holds the EU presidency, was trying yesterday to rescue the talks, due to start tomorrow in the Volga city of Samara. Officials have already abandoned hopes of issuing a joint communiqué.

Moscow’s ambassador in Brussels twisted the knife by highlighting divisions between “old” and “new” Europe on how to handle relations with Russia.

Vladimir Chizhov said that the EU had been taken hostage by one member state – Poland. In words calculated to infuriate former Eastern bloc nations that embraced the West after decades of Soviet control, he urged the EU’s “elder brothers” to help Estonia to “clean its wounds”.

Mr Chizhov accused former Iron Curtain countries of harking back to the Cold War.

“It is not a secret that in some of the new member states there are political forces that are still influenced by the phantoms of the past, by historical grievances against the Soviet Union that no longer exists,” he said.

The EU is determined to present a united front as it sits down with Mr Putin but has angered Moscow by supporting Estonia in the dispute over Russian war memorials.

A new EU-Russia partnership treaty, setting out economic and energy relations, would replace one negotiated with the late Boris Yeltsin when he was President.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German Foreign Minister, flew to Moscow yesterday in an attempt to bolster the summit agenda. It will be dominated by issues where agreement is unlikely, such as Kosovo’s future status, which helps to explain why a communiqué on Friday has been ruled out.

President Putin agreed to tone down the war of words with the West yesterday but failed to resolve disputes with the US and EU over defence and trade. Mr Putin and Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, agreed during talks in Moscow that they should scale back the increasingly heated rhetoric over American proposals for a missile defence shield in Europe.

“We did talk about the need to keep the temperature down,” Dr Rice said after talks at Mr Putin’s dacha outside the Russian capital. She made clear that Russia would not be allowed a veto on the plan to station interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar warning system in the Czech Republic.

Neither side gave ground over the future of Kosovo.

Mr Putin said that there were differences of opinion between Russia and the EU but, “thank God”, there were no conflict of interests.

The sour mood in the Kremlin in recent months towards the US and Europe is in stark contrast to Mr Putin’s early years in power when he sought closer ties with the West.

Noviye Izvestia published a map yesterday that graded relations between Russia and countries on its borders. The newspaper concluded that Russia was in conflict with virtually all of its western neighbours and enjoyed good ties only with Armenia and former Soviet republics in Central Asia.

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