Icon of St Vladimir the Great, Kievâs first Christian ruler. Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty
The Russians have always said Ukraine is part of Russia. Are they right?
Whatâs all the sabre rattling about? Vladimir Putin believes Ukrainians are really Russians, and he wants America to agree that Ukraine will never be a member of Nato. Heâs still spitting teeth about Western troops piling into eastern Europe after the Cold War. In his mind, says Joshua Yaffa in The New Yorker, Western leaders promised not to advance towards Russiaâs borders after the fall of the Soviet Union â standing up to Nato on Ukraine is merely ârectifying a historical injusticeâ. At a press conference last December, Putin made his understanding of history clear: ââNot one inch to the east,â they told us in the nineties. So what? They cheated, just brazenly tricked us!â
Is he right? Recollections differ. The phrase ânot one inchâ comes from a meeting between Mikhail Gorbachev and James Baker in 1990. The then Soviet president and US secretary of state were trying to figure out what to do with Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall. âWould you prefer to see a unified Germany outside of Nato, independent and with no US forces?â Baker asked. âOr would you prefer a unified Germany to be tied to Nato, with assurances that Natoâs jurisdiction would not shift one inch eastward from its present position?â
What did Baker mean? He was suggesting that a unified Germany outside Nato might be a scarier prospect for Moscow than a unified Germany inside it â so long as Nato promised not to push any further east towards Russiaâs borders. President George HW Bush, however, firmly opposed his secretary of stateâs proposal of putting limits on Natoâs power, later saying to Germanyâs leader Helmut Kohl: âTo hell with all that. We prevailed and they didnât.â But Moscow took Bakerâs words as a promise and has complained about âNato expansionismâ ever since.
Whatâs the view from Kiev? Russians and Ukrainians agree that they (and the Belarusians) are descendants of the same people. In this world view they are âbrother nationsâ, made up of the Russian Velikorossy (âGreat Russiansâ), the Ukrainian Malorossy (âLittle Russiansâ), and the Belarusian Belorusy (âWhite Russiansâ). When Russia first became a tsardom in 1547, the official title of the ruler was Tsar vseya Rusi, âTsar of all the Russiasâ. All three Russias descend from 9th-century marauding Vikings known as the Rus, meaning ârowersâ, who paddled down the Dnieper River and established a capital at Kiev in 882. By comparison, Moscow at that time was a complete backwater, only earning its first recorded mention in 1147.
So the Russians are really Ukrainian? Originally yes. From Kiev, the Rus established a mighty empire stretching from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south. In 988, their leader Vladimir the Great converted to Christianity â he considered Islam but demurred when he learned booze was forbidden â and married a Byzantine princess. Their son Yaroslav the Wise ushered in a golden age during which a distinct Ukrainian territory and identity crystallised. But in 1240 the Mongol Horde decimated Kiev, leaving nothing but a pile of skulls, and seized most of the Rus empire.
When did the country we now call âRussiaâ first come into existence? When the Grand Dukes of Muscovy (as Moscow was then known) threw off the Mongol yoke in the late 1400s. They declared themselves Tsars of Russia in the following century, acting as if Ukrainians had always been Russians and had no history of their own. This included banning the Ukrainian language and crushing any hint of Ukrainian nationalism. The tyranny continued after the Russian Revolution in 1917. Stalin systematically oppressed the Ukrainians; millions starved to death in the artificial famine known as the Holodomor in the early 1930s. It was a bitter irony for a profoundly fertile region once known as the âbreadbasket of the Soviet Unionâ.
What is Putin up to now? Most Moscow watchers think invasion is unlikely. Any serious escalation in hostilities would be âfoolishâ, says Jeff Hawn in Foreign Policy. The Ukrainian army is âexperienced, modernised, and highly motivatedâ, not to mention backed by the might of the West. Even if Russia did manage to occupy Ukraine, occupations are âexpensive, dangerous, and often fruitlessâ, as the United States discovered in Iraq and Afghanistan. A war against its Ukrainian neighbours would permanently alienate Russia from Europe and make any let-up on sanctions impossible. Russia has absolutely nothing to gain from invading Ukraine, and a lot to lose.
So whatâs next? The Kremlin sees a White House rooted in âpost-Cold War triumphalismâ abusing its grip on the international order to bolster its position, says Maximilian Hess in The Moscow Times. For its part, the White House sees the Kremlin as âensconced in a revisionist revanchismâ that undermines international norms. Putinâs aggression has turned millions of Ukrainians toward the US in recent years. But the West must appreciate Russiaâs understanding of history if it is to have any hope of achieving peace on Europeâs eastern border. âIt has the added benefit of being in Ukrainiansâ interests too.â
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THE COUNTRY HOUSE Set in nine acres of gardens and paddocks near the fashionable town of Petworth in West Sussex, Gorehill House has spectacular views of the South Downs. Built in 1872 by architect Richard Norman Shaw, it has nine bedrooms, spacious living areas, and plenty of outbuildings. Chichester and the coast are both a 30-minute drive away. ÂŁ5m.
Bequia: Off-kilter glamour. Getty
Mustiqueâs bohemian neighbour
For years, the Caribbean island of Mustique was âa devil-may-care playground for the charming and the charmedâ, says Mark Ellwood in Air Mail. David Bowie had a house there; Princess Margaret partied naked on its beaches. âBut itâs on the slide.â Stuffy newcomers have arrived, turning Mustique into a âdry-clean-only-bikiniâ sort of holiday spot. This was once somewhere where, âat the end of a party, people used to take the wrong cars, and youâd sort it out the next dayâ, says one former resident. âNow, God forbid, security would be on you with a letter of complaint.â
So instead, everyone is heading to Bequia â the seven-square-mile island next door, which has retained the âoff-kilter glamourâ that once defined its neighbour. The houses are a bargain compared to Mustique (where a six-bedroom villa can set you back $16m) and the residents havenât undergone such an âuptight upgradeâ. âIf you want to put on your ball gown with flip-flops and some heritage diamonds, and go down to a rum shack on the beach here, it doesnât matter,â says Nicola Cornwell, a former British TV executive and Bequia homeowner. âNo one gives a shit what you did before â youâre judged by how you act, not who you were. They have a saying in Bequia: âWeâre all here because weâre not all there.ââ
Hugh Grant was often dismissed as âessentially playing himselfâ in rom-coms, says Scott Meslow in Bustle. Yet his charming-but-awkward characters were âworlds awayâ from his real personality, which was cagey and self-assured. Grant would rehearse relentlessly for his roles, down to every last hesitation and stutter. One of his very best performances came in 1995, after he was caught with a sex worker in his car. It was a tabloid scandal âthat nearly derailed his career in its infancyâ. Two weeks later, he apologised on an American chat show, mimicking the âstammering, contrite, lovably awkward Britâ he played in films â right down to the tactical use of the word âbollocksâ. The audience lapped it right up â and Grantâs career was back on track.
Watch the full apology here.
âThe people who live in a golden age usually go around complaining how yellow everything looks.â American poet Randall Jarrell
Thatâs it. Youâre done.
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