The Lost Twenty-Five Years

... republics, nor even Ukraine could have caused as big a country as the USSR to disappear so quickly. Only the will of the Russian establishment ... ... need for the incorporation of Crimea into today’s Russia, Vladimir Putin put forth the ‘Russian world’ concept ... ... finally concluded that its chances on the minor Eurasian stage (the Ukraine conflict) would diminish over time without active participation ... ... countries – initially in the hope of fitting into the realm of Western concepts. Over time, however, it became more and more withdrawn,...