A new anti-colonial struggle has started. Will it reach Putin? Nick Cohen

History is teetering on an edge. No one knows which way it will go. Maybe the Russian empire, the last and most terrible of the European empires, will fall. Or maybe it will absorb the hit and survive as it has survived and expanded since the 17th century. You’d be a fool to bet against it. The graveyards of Eurasia are full of those who did.

And yet the breathtaking heroism of the Ukrainian resistance and the insane self-delusion of the Putinist regime are allowing Russia’s opponents from