Former Soviet states are looking with unease at how Russia has been, and is, exercising its power over Crimea and Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin has spent recent weeks focussed on neighbouring countries, many of which have substantial ethnic Russian minorities as he vows to defend ethnic Russians wherever they live. He has embarked on an aggressive campaign to restore an imperial order he says was lost when the Soviet Union was divided into 15 states. At what point will he stop?
<i>The ongoing destabilisation of the eastern and southern parts of Ukraine presents disturbing evidence of the new European order that the Kremlin is creating. Countries with large ethnic Russian min...