Add this topic to your myFT Digest for news straight to your inbox
Vladimir Putin generates suspense in world affairs like some geopolitical Alfred Hitchcock
The Kremlin dilemma is that either rapprochement or retrenchment will sap its legitimacy
Its citizens have yet to conclude that autocracy is worse than their fear of chaos
Those who once tried to build a partnership declare Moscow has chosen confrontation
Technological backwardness increases its dependence on liberal democracies
Here is an opponent who wields the west’s liberal slogans against it
Moscow is the main beneficiary of Erdogan’s countercoup, writes Lilia Shevtsova
International Edition