The Long Read: How WWII shaped modern Western relations with Russia

The Soviets were crucial to the Allied victory in WW2, but 70 years on there is a rift again, says Geoffrey Roberts

THE guns fell silent 70 years ago. But the western boycott of Moscow’s 70th anniversary Second World War victory parade shows that while the war is in the past, it has not passed quietly into history.

Prompted by the Ukrainian crisis, these divisions in contemporary Russian-Western relations can be traced back to the Second World War.