Ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev warned the Baltic states that their relations with Russia, already cool, could dramatically worsen if they succeeded in joining the NATO alliance

Ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev warned the Baltic states that their relations with Russia, already cool, could dramatically worsen if they succeeded in joining the NATO alliance, Moscow's sworn Cold War enemy. Speaking in a discussion recently taped in Moscow and aired on March 1 on Estonian state television, he said marginal improvements in Russian-Baltic relations would be dramatically reversed if the Baltics entered the alliance.After regaining independence, the three Baltic states made NATO membership a top priority, saying they had a right to fully integrate with the West; they also cited security concerns vis-à-vis Russia. But Moscow has expressed fierce opposition, saying Baltic membership would be seen as a threat to Russian security. NATO says its door is open to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania but that they're not yet ready militarily to join. Gorbachev said the Baltics needed to accept Russia was its neighbor and learn to coexist with it without NATO. Former Lithuanian leader Vytautas Landsbergis recently called on Gorbachev to be indicted and tried for an attack by Soviet troops on the Vilnius TV tower in January, 1991, which left 13 independence demonstrators dead.