Are the Lessons for for Russia From the Last 300 Years?

Francis Town responds to a comment from a listener. He says british commentators tend to have a blind spot when it comes to events in europe before 19 forty. Nicholas the first made a disastrous miscalculation in crimea because he thought thathe western powers could not stand up to the russians. Of 18 12, poland was dismembered in the 17 nineties because it represented a threat to autocracy. And i think what this question sort of poses quite well is making the point that actualy ar not really mutually exclusive. That at the same time as russia can sort of claim, lay claim to ukraine and to other countries in its periphery,