As declared by Russia Today, Russian troops were deployed to Crimea ‘only to protect human rights’. The Crimean issue unfolding at present was compared to the secession of Kosovo, and daring to deny the illusory similarities between these two wildly different conflicts is described as ‘rewriting the rulebook’ on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine.

Guest Contributors: Timothy Stafford and Laura Dzelzyte 18th March 2014 After more than a decade promoting nonintervention in the internal affairs of other countries, Russia has become the latest convert to the concept of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’, or R2P. The notion, ...

Last Thursday I took the metro to Belorusskaya, to get the Sheremetyevo airport train out of Moscow. Perhaps not for the last time in my life but probably the last for a while, at least. During the last six months I have met, befriended and drunk too much vodka with some warm, sensible and decent Russian people.