June 16 (Bloomberg) -- Central Europe should reject Russian energy supplies rather than be “blackmailed” by the government in Moscow, said former Czech President Vaclav Havel, who led his countrymen to overthrow their Soviet-backed regime and help end the Cold War.

Attempts by the “regime” of Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and its President Dmitry Medvedev to extend Moscow’s influence in central and eastern Europe by interrupting gas must be resisted by the countries that threw off Soviet rule in 1989, Havel said in a Bloomberg interview in Prague today.

“It is necessary to say politely and with a friendly smile that we are free and we will do what we want,” said Havel, 72, who was Czech president from 1993 until 2003. “We will not be manipulated or blackmailed, and if you threaten that you will not deliver gas to us, well then, keep it.”

Some 20 European countries, including former Soviet bloc members Slovakia, Bulgaria and Hungary, ran short of natural gas in January after Russia cut supplies to Ukraine. The dispute highlighted Europe’s dependence on Russian companies such as OAO Gazprom for its energy supplies.

Gas Imports

European imports from the former Soviet Union fell 35 percent to 26.9 billion cubic meters from a year earlier, the International Energy Agency said in a report posted on its Web site yesterday.

Gazprom, Russia’s natural gas exporter, also buys and resells gas from former Soviet nations.

Russia still aims “to get neighboring states into their sphere of influence or under their dominance,” Havel said, although “everything is more sophisticated than under Brezhnev.” Leonid Brezhnev was Soviet leader from 1964 to 1982 and ordered the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.

“The Russians wish, and they show it, that the states of central Europe fall under their influence,” Havel said. “They want to decide about membership in the European Union and NATO. They want us to ask them what we may and may not do.”

During Havel’s presidency, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization expanded to include the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary, while the EU added eight former communist nations in 2004.

Russian Objections

U.S. efforts to further expand the NATO alliance have hit resistance. Russia objects to membership for the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine.

Most of Russia’s neighbors don’t want to fall under its influence “if only because economic development in Russia is worse than in the Euro-Atlantic zone,” said Havel.

“We should be on terms of partnership with everybody, but partnership requires sincerity,” Havel said.

Russian oil output fell 0.8 percent last year, the first decline in a decade. State-run Gazprom, the world’s biggest producer of natural gas, said its output may shrink as much as 18 percent this year.

After fighting communism as a dissident writer for three decades, Havel became an international symbol for the toppling of totalitarian regimes in the former Soviet bloc after the 1989 Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia swept him to the country’s highest office.

To contact the reporter on this story: Andrea Dudikova in Prague at adudikova@bloomberg.net; Peter S. Green in New York at psgreen@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 16, 2009 15:33 EDT