Putin’s imperial hangover William E. Pomeranz, reuters.com Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin&

Putin’s imperial hangover
William E. Pomeranz, reuters.com

Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin’s impul­sive incur­sion into Ukrain­ian ter­ri­to­ry has left Rus­sia more iso­lat­ed than at any time since the Cold War. Pre­dictably, the Euro­pean Union and the Unit­ed States have loud­ly object­ed. More to the poin…

“Putin grew up at a time when Russia was the unquestioned center of a communist empire that had managed to suppress national challenges for decades. So while the rest of the world was dismantling their empires and transforming colonies into nations, the Soviet Union retained its empire until 1991. Putin — as the leading representative of the last Soviet generation — acquired the mindset of Russia’s natural hegemony and never accepted the post-Soviet republic’s place in the expanding community of nations.”