It has been conservatively estimated that Russia from 1683 to 1914 extended its sovereign territory on average by 55 sq. Miles every day!
I would add that Trotsky and then Stalin recovered much that was lost after 1917.
Will Putin recover what was lost after Gorbachev?
Is there any evidence that Putin will behave contrary to half a millenium of Russian history?
This was through large captures, of course.
The hope of glory through conquest of lands is deep in the Russian psyche. Without a countervailing power, that does not just vanish.
As I see it the Russia today is not the Soviet Union...most recognize this even if the old war horses choose not to.
Putins’ not a Communist, he’s interested in oil and securing his borders and military ports from Nato expansion which most who are looking at both sides of this power struggle between Nato and Russia understand... That includes building up his military on those borders with all that’s been happening since Nato crossed the red line they knew was a red line in Ukraine.
How be it...they did cross it and here we are.....
The greatest problem going on is media today is drenched with an avalanche of fantasies and propaganda here in the US and now equally as much on International Stage.........it’s it’s a deadly dangerous thing.
Political affiliations interests preclude too many from seeing ‘evidences’... So we fail to even strive for objectivity,and for that TRUTH DISAPPEARS.
Everyone believes in the atrocities of the enemy and disbelieves in those of his own side, and stunningly without ever bothering to examine the evidence.
So we might consider what George Orwell warned this leads to............... .........
....“We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue..... And then when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right.......Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: .....the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality,...... usually on a battlefield.”