So, apart from being a great nation who made a partial recovery after a great humiliation; vigorous rearmament; piecemeal neighbour-annexing; pursuing ultra-nationalist policies; persecuting minorities and any critics of the regime; a charismatic leader propagating a dual narrative for the country of both macho strength and victimhood; a controversial Olympics used as a propaganda tool for a nationalist resurgence; continuing to pretend to cooperate with Europe’s governments and then break its promises; and cultivating appeasers abroad, there was clearly a very good reason why Russia was different from pre-war Germany.
Russia was not in a major economic crisis.
Until now. As the Economist pointed out yesterday, largely thanks to the tanking oil price, Russian bonds are already practically junk.
So, a recap of those ten remaining reasons why Russia and pre-war Germany are different again:
- Russia has nuclear weapons.
- Er…
- That’s it.
Phew, that’s alright then. We’re perfectly safe continuing to do next to nothing about Ukraine. It’ll all end well.