Russian newspapers on Tuesday hailed a victory for Moscow after the European Union froze talks on closer ties until Russian troops withdraw from Georgia but stopped short of imposing economic sanctions.
"Europe Can Keep Sucking Our Oil and Gas," read a headline in the tabloid Tvoi Den, adding that the E.U. hadn't "given in to the hysterics" of U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Polish President Lech Kaczynski.
"The mutual dependency between Russia and the E.U. leaves no alternative to developing close bilateral relations. This was once again confirmed at the E.U. summit in Brussels," said the government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta.
"There is no mention of the introduction of economic sanctions in the final statement approved at the summit. This looks, at least at this stage, like a clear victory for proponents of dialogue with Moscow," the daily said.
The Kommersant daily said the summit was "a victory for Russian diplomacy." Izvestia said: "The main result of the Brussels summit of the E.U. is that most Europeans do not want to have a serious and long row with Moscow."
Ahead of Monday's emergency summit of the E.U., some E.U. members, including the U.K. and Poland, had called for harsher measures against Moscow following Russia's five-day war with Georgia last month.
Russia earlier warned it was ready to retaliate against any sanctions.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov left Tuesday for talks on the Georgia crisis with Turkish counterpart Ali Babacan, ITAR-TASS reported.
Georgian Foreign Minister Eka Tkeshelashvili had met Babacan Sunday.
At the E.U. summit, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he would visit both Moscow and Tbilisi Monday for talks on the crisis with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and E.U. foreign policy chief Javier Solana.