June 17 (Bloomberg) -- Vaclav Havel, the dissident playwright who led his countrymen in revolt against their Soviet-backed regime, said Central Europe should reject Russian energy supplies rather than be “blackmailed” by the government in Moscow.

The nations that threw off Soviet rule in 1989 mustn’t yield to efforts by Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and its President Dmitry Medvedev to extend Moscow’s influence in central and eastern Europe by turning off the gas to their countries, Havel said in a Bloomberg interview in Prague yesterday.

“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 needs.

European gas 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 June 15.

New Pipeline

Rather than buy gas from Russia, Europe should pursue projects like the Nabucco pipeline, to import gas from the Caspian Sea region through Turkey, Havel said. On May 6, the European Union approved an initial investment of 200 million euros ($277 million) for the pipeline which was endorsed by Turkey two days later. It’s expected to begin operation in 2015, according to the EU.

“They should have come up with that years ago,” Havel said referring to the Nabucco plan, and said Europe must wean itself from fossil fuels.

“We are living in the cult of growth and at the same time a cult of growing energy consumption, when it should actually be the other way around,” he said.

“It would be better to take care of the problem by ourselves, than to be forced to do so by someone else turning off the tap,” he said.

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 invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.

‘Russia’s Wish’

“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 EU and NATO. They want us to ask them what we may and may not do.”

He called the Russian government “a very special and new form of semi-authoritarian regime.”

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.

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

Havel also warned that Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a man possessed and could “damage a lot of people.”

‘A Man Possessed’

“The Iranian president does not represent any religious nor national or other ideas,” Havel said. “In my eyes he is a man possessed. Unfortunately we are living at a time when a man possessed could easily inflict damage to a lot of people, due to modern technology.

“It is important that the West should not consider oil to be more important than human rights,” he added.

The West could consider embargoes or boycotts aimed at the Iranian government, taking care to ensure they don’t harm the people, Havel said.

Western Europe and the U.S. won’t let Russia control the economic fate of central and eastern Europe, he said.

“What is possible and what I would repeatedly warn against is the policy of compromise and the notion that if we don’t provoke evil, it will just go away by itself,” Havel said. “On the contrary, that would just make it stronger.”

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.

‘Sincerity Required’

“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 human rights activist and writer for three decades, Havel became a symbol for the toppling of totalitarian regimes after the 1989 Velvet Revolution.

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 18:01 EDT