ANNEX SOUTH EAST EUROPE Political Developments 1. The Soviet Government have, at the Paris Conference, shown themselves unyielding in their refusal to agree to early peace settlements with Hungary, Roumania and Bulgaria, and they have given staunch support to Yugoslav claims to Trieste. 2. A further feature of the Paris Peace Conference has been that more light has been shed on Russian maritime ambitions. The position originally taken up over Libya and Venezia Giulia, especially Trieste, and the bargaining over the disposal of the Italian Fleet fall into place as part of a long-term scheme for establishing Russia as a maritime Power in the Mediterranean, with footholds if possible at Trieste, in the eastern Adriatic, in the Dodecanese, on the Straits, and even in North Africa.