Crisis in Ukraine - Iron curtain made real once again

It is an indication of how powerful, how unaccountable and secure Russia president Vladimir Putin and his circle of oligarchs feel that they can orchestrate such terrible, anti-democratic violence in Ukraine while their pet project — the incredibly expensive, €37.5bn Olympics at Sochi — offers the world a prime-time insight into modern Russia.

It is an indication of the ruthlessness, not by any means used for the first time, that Russia is prepared to deploy to maintain a cordon sanitaire between itself and western Europe, the source of catastrophe after catastrophe for Russia over the last two centuries. Those centuries’ apocalyptic invasions cost almost 50m Russian lives and ensure that Putin’s interventions in eastern Europe — and probably those of his successors for generations to come — have the support of a great number of Russians.

This world view is not incomprehensible, especially as Russia’s citizens are also denied the freedoms some of Ukraine’s 45m citizens exercised by trying to strengthen links with the EU rather than Russia, an entirely valid choice at the root of the escalating violence in Kiev.