Ukraine, Europe and Energy

After a short pause, the borders of east and southeast Europe are again in flux, as they have been on and off since the early Russian people established Kiev as their capital. Crimea was annexed by Catherine the Great. The British and others fought the Crimean War in the nineteenth century and Russia’s imperial expansion towards the Balkans helped to trigger the First World War. Stalin created the greatest Russian empire – the Soviet Union – which Gorbachev lost. Putin regards the loss of the Soviet Union as the greatest political disaster of the twentieth century. The great game is on again.

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