
Russian imperial mindset must change for real victory
Although the reverberations of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine clearly stretch around the globe, the strongest shocks are – and will continue to be – felt by those countries Moscow used to directly rule.
These countries struggle to shrug off a Soviet legacy as, to varying degrees – linguistically, technologically, culturally, and politically – they bear psychological and physical scars of Russia’s colonial past and its present mentality.
It does not help that these countries lack an appropriate collective descriptor. Over the years there has been ‘Newly Independent States’ – hardly appropriate after 31 years – the now-defunct ‘Commonwealth of Independent States’, the ‘post-Soviet space’ and ‘Former Soviet Union’ which both reference the past, and simply ‘Eurasia’ which is hardly appropriate for either Ukraine or Turkmenistan.… Seguir leyendo »