Russia’s Road to the Middle East (Resources & Notes)

[Note:  The Black Sea was also called the Pontos Euxeniose, Greek Pontos Euxenios, which literally means the “hospitable sea,” which is considered a euphemism for Pontos Axeinos, which is understood to mean “inhospitable sea,” which is a description attributed to the Greek poet Pindar.]

[Note:  Justinian I, also known as Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Iustinianus Augustus, was traditionally called Justinian the Great, and also Saint Justinian the Great, in the Eastern Orthodox Church.  He was a Byzantine emperor who sought to revive the Classical Roman Empire, and although some have interpreted the work of Justinian I as being a “revival” of the Roman Empire, it is quite clear from history that he never realized the restoration of the Classical Roman Empire.].
[Note:  Justinian I tried to recover the lost empire of the west from the German invaders who ruled Italy and parts of North Africa, but the best he could achieve was the restoration of Ravenna as a capital of Italy.]

[Note:  Before the reign of Justinian I, reasonably considered the last of the Roman emperors, the empire was earlier divided to the two sons of Theodosius I (the Great), who was the last emperor to rule over both the western and eastern halves of what remained of the Classical Roman Empire.]

[Note:  Both Theodosius and Justinian would in time become significantly influential on the migrating Slavs who early on settled in the region of the Balkans.  Noting that it was Theodosius the Great who issued a decree that made orthodox Nicene Christianity the official state religion of both the western and eastern regions of a crumbling Roman empire, and so Nicene Christianity became the foundation for the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church.  This was followed by Justinian’s support of the creed established at Nicaea and Constantinople, which became the official creed (Symbol of Faith) of the Eastern Orthodox Church.  (The addition of the Filioque by the Roman Catholic Church led to the Great Schism between Roman Catholicism and Byzantine Orthodoxy.)]

[Note:  It is thought that it was four tribes—the Chuds, Slavs, Merians and Krivichs—who at one time drove out a people called the Varangians (supposedly Scandinavians).]

[Note:  Warring tribes among the Slavs led them to seek a prince among the Varangians.  This initiated a Scandinavian expedition into Russia by three brothers, Rurik, and later Dir and Askold, and their kinsman supposedly known as the Rus.  This Rurik (Hrörekr), a Swede, founded Russia’s first ruling dynasty, and in time these northern rulers became known as the velikii kniaz, meaning “great prince,” or “grand prince,” as was Yaroslav the Wise.]

[Note:  Yaroslav the Wise, the Grand Prince of Kyiv, was a renowned ruler from one of the earliest Russian states, the Kievan kingdom.  The ancient city of Kyiv (sometimes Kiev) was once called “the mother of all Russian cities,” and was founded beside the Dnepr River (Dnieper) in what is today the country of Ukraine.]

[Note:  Yaroslav the Wise was a man of some religious devotion who was inspired to have many religious books from the Byzantine Empire translated into Old Russian.  He also founded some of the earliest monasteries in Russia, and after defeating the tribes of Pincenates in 1035 AD, Yaroslav marked his victory by building one of the great cathedrals of Europe, the Saint Sofia Cathedral in Kyiv.]

[Note:  Yaroslav also established many ties with Western European rulers by having his children marry into many of Europe’s royal families.  Yaroslav’s wife, known as Irene in Russia, was the daughter of King Olaf of Sweden.  His son Vsevolod married the daughter of the Byzantine Emperor Konstantin Monomakh.  His grandson, the legendary Russian Prince Vladimir, was later dubbed ‘Monomakh.’  His second son married the sister of Dazamir of Poland, the youngest daughter Anne married Henry I of France, his daughter Elizabeth married Harald III of Norway and Anastasia married the future Andrew I of Hungary.  Also, his granddaughter married the German Emperor Henry IV and his grandson Vladimir Monomakh married the daughter of Harold who was the last Anglo-Saxon king.]

[Note:  By 1914, on the eve of World War I, the destiny of Europe was influenced by three ruling cousins and grandsons of Queen Victoria of England—George V of England, Wilhelm II of Germany and Nicholas II of Russia.  (George V’s and Nicholas II’s mothers were both Danish princesses.]

[Note:  Yaroslav began the lineage and dukedoms of Moscow.  These dukes of Moscow eventually added to their official title the phrase “of all Russia.”  Thus, they each became the “Grand Duke of all Russia.”]

[Note:  The “grad” of Moscow gradually grew in prominence and was considered a fortress against the Mongols with its high walls, and although disputed, the word “Kremlin” (kreml) is thought to be of Tatar or Mongol origin and means “fortified place,” and some consider it to be the foundational word for “Crimea.”]

[Note:  It was Ivan III (called “the Great”) who continued to enlarge the boundaries of Russia and end the subservience to the Tatars.  It was during this time that the duke of Russia sought to claim an even greater title—Tsar (Caesar) of all Russia.  This political title was realized with the marriage of Ivan III and Zoë Palaeologina, the niece of Constantine XI Palaeologus who was the last of the Byzantine Emperors.  Ivan’s new wife Zoë (Sophia) exercised a great influence on the Russian court by bringing with her manuscripts, priests, scholars, artists and architects, creating somewhat of a renaissance for the Muscovites.]

[Note:  Ivan the Great’s grandson, Ivan IV, known in history as Ivan the Terrible, was the first to officially assume the title of Tsar.  His rule reflected Tatar absolutism and the Byzantine practice of combining church and state, which further established—in part—the foundation for what would eventually become the modern Russian state.]

[Note:  Tacitus recorded in his Germania that the peoples who inhabited the peninsula of Sweden were called the Suiones (“Sviar” in Old Norse).  They became known as the Svear and gave their name to the country of Sweden.  According to Tacitus, the Svear were first ruled by a king who had absolute power, and in time, we find that other rulers in Denmark, Norway and Finland were related to the Swedish kings.]

[Note:  History shows that Oleg signed a commercial treaty with the Byzantine Empire in AD 911, which was about the same time the Normans were settling the northern coast of France.  Oleg ruled as regent in Kyiv with Rurik’s son, Ingvar (Igor), who also signed a treaty with the empire (containing three Slavic names and 50 Norse names).  Svyatoslav reigned after his father, Ingvar, (and after his mother’s abdication,) and tried to move his capital closer to Byzantium, but he died during a battle in AD 972.  This ended the Scandinavian tradition, and began the Norman tradition with his youngest son, Vladimir I.]

[Note:  Vladimir became a “Christian” during his reign, following the religion of the Byzantine Greeks in Constantinople, a city the Russians called Tsargrad.  This served to further isolate Eastern Europe and the Russian church from Roman Catholicism.]

[Note:  A dark period occurred for Russia with the invasion of the Tatar, Batu Khan, and his armies, which became known as the Golden Horde.  Batu was a grandson of Ghengis Khan.  This invasion led to greater divisions of the country into various city-states or dukedoms, and from these there emerged the Little Russians and the White Russians.  Also, developing at this time were three distinct political centers in Russia—Novgorod, Galicia and Moscow.]

[Note:  A descendant of Yaroslav, Alexander Nevsky, had a younger son named Daniel, and with this son began the lineage and dukedom of Moscow.  The dukes of Moscow began to add to their official title “of all Russia,” and their successes in battles against the Swedes and the Mongol horde caused many people to come to Moscow to serve the “Grand Duke of all Russia.”]

[Note:  Ivan IV also formed the Oprichnik, which is thought to be the historical forerunner of the modern KGB.]

[Note:  Ivan IV came to the throne at age three in 1533.  His power was autocratic, and an example of his cruelty is noted in the fact that Ivan killed his eldest son in a fit of rage, and the consequence was that after Ivan IV died, the throne went to his next son, Fyodor I.  Fyodor was not a strong ruler, and received much of his guidance from his brother-in-law, the boyar Boris Godunov, who himself became tsar after the death of Fyodor.  (The death of Fyodor, the last of Ivan’s sons by Anastasia, brought an end to the house of Rurik that started in the days of the ancient Kievan Rus.)]

[Note:  In 1613 Mikhail Romanov was made the new tsar and founder of a dynasty that lasted until 1917.  Mikhail Romanov was a grandnephew of Anastasia Romanovna.  His coronation began a new dynasty that lasted more than 300 years.]

[Note:  After the death of Peter I (the Great), Russia was ruled by a succession of emperors including four empresses—Catherine I, Anne, Elizabeth I and Catherine II (called “the Great”).]

[Note:  After Constantinople had fallen to the Ottoman Turks, a city known as the “Second Rome,” it was believed by some that the Greeks had been punished by God.  Therefore, the succession of the Roman Empire and was believed to have fallen to Moscow, which then became the “Third Rome.”  Thus, the bishop’s jurisdiction (See) that started in Kyiv eventually transferred to Vladimir in c. 1299 and then in c. 1325 to Moscow, and it is believed in Russian Orthodoxy that there shall never be a Fourth Rome.]

[Note:  Of the Romanov’s, the most famous was Peter I, called “Peter the Great,” who became sole ruler of Russia in 1689.  St. Petersburg, the capital city that Peter built, became poetically known as, “The Babylon of the Snows.”]

[Note:  During the reign of the Tsar Nicolas II an unexpected assassination sparked the beginning of World War I, resulting in the overthrow of the tsarist political institution in 1917.]

[Note:  The early part of the 19th Century became the final days of kings and queens, and it was the closing of the period when monarchs ruled the land.  It was also the time of philosophical and social change, and it was a time of new discoveries in technology—creating the Industrial Revolution.  These sweeping changes in Europe, and in particular Russia, laid the foundation for the acceptance of the socialist ideology of Marxist Communism among the industrial class, and consequently “communism” became a byword for the ensuing Russian Revolution.  This allowed Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev and others to successively take the helm of Russian politics.]

[Note:  So influential was communism that Engels’ wrote in the preface of the Manifesto of the Communist Party, commonly called “The Communist Manifesto,” that:  “This proposition… in my opinion, is destined to do for history what Darwin’s theory has done for biology” (The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels, International Pub., 1848, 1948, p. 6.)]

[Note:  Marxist Communism had popular appeal among the impoverished masses in Russia at the turn of the 20th Century, but it also created the concept of a working-class dictatorship, which saw the former tsars and the wealthy landowners as the cause of their problems and poverty.  Thus, the perceived struggle between the capitalist class (“bourgeoisie”), and the working class (“proletariat”), became an influential principle for change by revolution and this gave credence to outspoken reformers like Lenin, who like a prophet of the people advocated revolutionary changes as a means to liberty in Russia.]

[Note:  Leninism in effect transformed Marxism into a doctrine of state power and world revolution.]

[Note:  The economic and social philosophy known as Marxism-Leninism didn’t solve economic problems, nor did it bring about the expected social changes, instead it became a disguise for a new wave of authoritarian and imperialist rulers and dictators, politically called the “New Tsars.”]

[Note:  There were 17 successive Romanov tsars from Mikhail to Nicolas II.]

[Note:  When Tsar Nicolas I assumed the throne an event occurred called the “Decembrist Revolt.”  It was an effort to form a constitutional monarchy, and it seemed to set a precedent that only a violent revolution would ever create a change in Russian society.]

[Note:  During the reign of Tsar Nicolas II a revolution began brewing among the people, and in 1905 a protest led by a priest, Georgy Gapon, sparked a response from government troops.  Hundreds of people were killed, and thousands were wounded.  This was in the bitter cold month of January, and the day became known as “Bloody Sunday.”]

[Note:  In June of 1914 the crown prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was assassinated and Russia was obliged to help Serbia.  This led to several declarations of war, which spelled disaster as millions of Russians were killed in the ensuing war that eventually resulted in the overthrow of the Russian tsars, and it also brought about the adoption of Marxist Communism.]

[Note:  World War I caused food shortages, monetary inflation, strikes and a growing number of people began protesting the government of Russia.  In desperation, the soldiers finally joined the rioters and Nicolas II was forced to abdicate the throne—ending tsarism during a fragile democratic government introduced under Alexander Kerensky.  What followed was a dramatic revolution against Kerensky led by the Bolsheviks.]

[Note:  A result of the Bolshevik Revolution was the switch from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar for the people of Russia.]

[Note:  The Cold War began as an impasse in 1945 at the Potsdam Conference in Germany over what to do with Eastern Europe.  The result of this long and costly Cold War, however, revealed no real winners, but it did expose Marxism’s flaws as a social and financial system.  This “cold war,” between two world superpowers facilitated the financial collapse and political restructuring of the Soviet Union in 1991.]

[Note:  Restructuring (“perestroika”) of the former Soviet Union forced the republics to fend more for themselves, and in the light of this new-found freedom among the Commonwealth of Independent States we see that Russia has had its struggles, but it is nonetheless still a world superpower, and its peoples have shown a strong sense of resilience that will undoubtedly prepare them for future world events before the return of Christ.]

[Note:  Many years after the spread of Christianity from the Middle East into Europe, there were people who devoted their lives to missionary work, and two such individuals born in Thessaloníki, Greece, were Cyril and Methodius.  These two brothers were, by request of Rostislav, duke of Moravia, part of a mission in AD 864 to Greater Moravia.  They became known as the apostles to the Slavs and the fathers of Slavonic literature.]

[Note:  The Cyrillic Alphabet used in Russia and elsewhere today is named for St. Cyril.  Scholars now believe, however, that Cyril only laid the foundation for the development of the alphabet, and the Russian alphabet used today was probably the work of his followers.  This important example helps us determine that the Slavs, who make up the greater portion of the peoples of Russia, were well settled in their lands by the 9th Century AD.]

[Note: In the book of Genesis we have a genealogical and familial listing commonly called the “Table of Nations.”  What is interesting about this list of descendants from Noah is that it only gives us the names of his grandchildren up to the fourth generation after the Flood.  This in itself doesn’t really tell us all the facts of how the nations today are descended from these particular families listed in the Table of Nations.

Some people have incorrectly assumed that it is a matter of racial distinctions associated with the three sons of Noah.  In reality, this list of Noah’s descendants is about the greater geopolitical groupings that have continued to shape civilizations, making the world the way it is today.  It is this configuration of families that sets the stage for the national geopolitical decisions that lead up to the return of Jesus Christ, and in some measure we can determine from the Table of Nations the geopolitical role that Russia and other nations will play in the future before the return of Christ.]

[Note:  Some consider that Noah’s son, Japheth, and his descendants, are traditionally associated with the many different peoples who came to live in the region from the western Mediterranean Sea area to Eastern Europe, and from the Caucasus region between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea to the Orient.]

[Note:  “Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth:  and unto them were sons born after the flood.  The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras.  And the sons of Gomer; Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah.  And the sons of Javan; Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim.  By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations” (Gen. 10:1-5).]

[Note:  Some consider that Japheth’s son, Javan, is the forefather of the Ionians and from his descendants we generally have the peoples we customarily call the Greeks.  The Greek family can be divided further into Dodanim, who is associated with the Dodacanese Islands, one of which is named Rhodes (from Rodanim).  Chittim is sometimes linked with the ancient Macedonians, and Elisha (Hellas or Ellas) is associated with Greece, which is officially known as the Hellenic Republic.]

[Note:  The nation-state of Greece is thought by some to be intrinsically linked to the European Union, and thereby what affects Greece financially affects the economics of this political institution in Western Europe.  However, from a familial perspective the Greeks have a more intrinsic link with the Slavs of Eastern Europe and also the Russians.]

[Note:  Interestingly, the Bible states, respective to some of the children of Japheth, that:  “by these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations” (Gen. 10:5).  Such a concept certainly applies to all of the peoples accounted for in the Table of Nations, but for some of the descendants of Japheth we have the bounds of the “gentiles,” which are a political grouping of great significance to the future of Palestine and the Middle East.]

[Note:  Madai is considered to be the father of the Medes, a people who at one time inhabited an area in what is today northwestern Iran (formerly Persia).  When we think of the Medes, we often think of the ancient Persians, even though early on the Medes were a separate kingdom from the Persians.  We even find that the Medes warred with the Assyrians, who at one time dominated the Medes, and at its zenith the kingdom of the Medes ranged from Iran to the Caspian Sea, and eastward into Asia Minor.

We may recall the story of the fall of Samaria in 722 BC, that it was besieged for three years by the Assyrian king, Shalmaneser V.  His successor Sargon II led thousands of Israelites into captivity and displaced them to the lands of Halah, Habor and the “cities of the Medes” (northern Mesopotamia, east of Haran).   This military and political tactic later had fateful and decisive repercussions for the Assyrians.

According to the Greek historian, Herodotus, the Medes had made earlier attempts to overthrow the Assyrian domination, but were temporarily interrupted by the unexpected intrusion of the Scythians from Central Asia, who set up their own empire in the region of Media and Persia.  (Josephus notes that the Magogites were called Scythians by the Greeks.  In Russian history, the Scythians were the first to settle in that land, and were influential on the people who later resided on the lower Volga, called Celts.)

In time, some of these Scythians joined forces with the Medes and the Babylonians to finally overthrow the Assyrians.  The fall of Nineveh came in the year 612 BC, which is an event recorded in a chronicle that was discovered in 1923, called The Fall of Nineveh.  The fall of this Assyrian capital resulted in the expansion of the Median Empire, with its capital at Ecbatana, to include much of Persia, Assyria, northern Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Cappadocia (east-central Asia Minor).  It also paved the way for peoples to migrate east and west throughout the Median Empire.

Thus, two ancient empires came to exist side-by-side—the Median Empire to the north, and the Babylonian Empire to the south.  Under these circumstances, we can see why those who remained in Jerusalem and Judea thought that it might be the Medes who would overthrow the Babylonians.

“Therefore, behold, the days come, that I will do judgment upon the graven images of Babylon:  and her whole land shall be confounded, and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her.  Then the heaven and the earth, and all that is therein, shall sing for Babylon: for the spoilers shall come unto her from the north, saith the Lord” (Jer. 51:47-48; see also Jer. 50:1-5).  Unfortunately for the people of Judah and Benjamin, and remnants of the tribes of Israel, this didn’t happen until a time after they themselves were taken into captivity by the Babylonian armies of Nebuchadnezzar II.]

[Note:  The prophet Daniel, who was taken in the Babylonian captivity, was given an astonishing vision into the future, while he remained in Babylon during the reign of King Belshazzar.  In his vision, Daniel found himself in the Persian (ancient Elam) palace in the capital of Shushan (Susa).  He saw in the vision “a ram which had two horns:  and the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last” (Dan. 8:3).

The meaning of the vision was also given to Daniel, and it was explained to him that the two horns represented the kings of Media and Persia, who eventually did overthrow the Babylonian Empire.  (To forestall this invasion, Nebuchadnezzar built the Median Wall, and married a Median princess, Amyitis, for whom he built the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon.)

History tells us that the Median Empire came first, but was, in turn, dominated by the Persians, but unlike other usurping empires, the Persians under Cyrus allowed Median rulers to have positions in the Persian government, and an example is found with Darius called “the Mede” (Dan. 11:1; see also Dan. 9:1).]

[Note:  Some sources show that the founder of the first Median dynasty was Dayaukku (Gk. “Deїoces”).  It was his son, Phraortes, who led a successful rebellion to overthrow the Assyrians at Nineveh in 612 BC.  He was later killed by the Scythians.  His son, Cyaxares, made Ecbatana the capital of Media, and imposed his rule over the Persians.  Later, he was succeeded by his son, Astyages.]

[Note:  Among the many colorful legends that surround the birth of Cyrus we do find enough factual evidence to recount his rise to power.  Cyrus, who was later known as “Cyrus the Great,” was the son of Cambyses I, and was the founder of the Achaemenid dynasty of Persia.  Cyrus is also thought to have been the son of Mandane, a daughter of the Median king, Astyages.

Cyrus eventually became the ruler of the Anshan district in Persia, which at one time was subject to the rule of the Median kings.  Later, Cyrus led a successful rebellion against the Medes and the Median king, Astyages (Cyrus’s grandfather), and removed him from power, and this led to the overthrow of the Median Empire in c. 549 BC, which became absorbed into the Persian Empire.]

[Note:  Babylon fell to the Medo-Persian Empire in c. 539 BC.]

[Note:  The Medes and the Persians were two distinct peoples, even though both spoke an Indo-Iranian language, and the Medes remained in the region of the Caucasus and northward into the Asian steppes until the time of the breakup of the Greco-Macedonian Empire—at the death of Alexander the Great.]

[Note:  According to Herodotus, (known as the “father of history,” writing in the late 5th Century BC), the people known as the Medes were part of Persian military expeditions into the general areas now known as the Ukraine and southern Russia.  Pliny the Elder, the Roman historian writing in the 1st Century AD, wrote about the peoples who lived in the area of the river Don in Eastern Europe, noting that these people were descendants of the Medes (Herodotus, bks. 3, 4 and 7).]

[Note:  “Meanwhile the Swedes, whose rivers and bays faced eastward into the Baltic, made their own way up and down the rivers of Russia—the Dvina, the Dnieper, the Volga—trading with Muslims [including slavery] and dominating the life of Kiev and Novgorod….  For seven hundred years, from the time of Emperor Constantine to the Crusades, the Scandinavians were the chief agents of European expansion toward the south, toward the east—and toward the west” (The Discoverers, by Daniel J. Boorstin, Vintage Books, 1983, p. 209).]

[Note:  Ukraine claims that the referendum over Crimea was illegal as was the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, and that President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted by the people of Ukraine.  The annexation that occurred in 2014 caused the United States and the European Union to impose sanctions on Russia.]

[Note:  The United Nations General Assembly rejected the referendum and Russia’s annexation of Crimea, which brought about a resolution that affirmed the territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders.]

[Note:  The democratic movement known as the Orange Revolution started with a series of protests and political events that took place in Ukraine from late November 2004 to January 2005.]

[Note:  The Autonomous Republic of Crimea is still considered to be legally a part of Ukraine.]

[Note:  Russia’s Black Sea fleet is stationed at it naval base in Sevastopol, which up until the annexation was under lease to the Russians.]

[Note:  Ukraine has suffered from many years of political corruption and currently struggling economically, which means that Ukraine is likely to be a burden to NATO, and not so much an ally against Russia.]

[Note: Dr. Henry Kissinger wrote: “In 1852, the French Emperor Napoleon III, having just come to power by a coup, persuaded the Turkish Sultan to grant him the sobriquet of Protector of the Christians in the Ottoman Empire, a role the Russian Tsar traditionally reserved for himself. Nicholas I was enraged that Napoleon, whom he considered an illegitimate upstart, should presume to step into Russia’s shoes as protector of Balkan Slavs, and demanded equal status with France. When the Sultan rebuffed the Russian emissary, Russia broke off diplomatic relations. Lord Palmerston, who shaped British foreign policy during the mid-nineteenth century, was morbidly suspicious of Russia and urged the dispatch of the Royal Navy to Besika Bay, just outside the Dardanelles. The Tsar still continued in the spirit of the Metternich system: ‘The four of you,’ he said, referring to the other Great Powers, ‘could dictate to me, but this will never happen. I can count on Berlin and Vienna.’ To show his lack of concern, Nicholas ordered the occupation of the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia (present-day Romania).

“Austria, which had the most to lose from a war, proposed the obvious solution—that France and Russia act as joint protectors of the Ottoman Christians. Palmerston was eager for neither outcome. To strengthen Great Britain’s bargaining position, he sent the Royal Navy to the entrance of the Black Sea. This encouraged Turkey to declare war on Russia. Great Britain and France backed Turkey.

“The real causes of the war [Crimean War] were deeper, however. Religious claims were in fact pretexts for political and strategic designs. Nicholas was pursing the ancient Russian dream of gaining Constantinople and the Straits. Napoleon III saw an opportunity to end France’s isolation and to break up the Holy Alliance by weakening Russia. Palmerston, sought some pretext to end Russia’s drive toward the Straits once and for all. With the outbreak of war, British warships entered the Black Sea and began to destroy the Russian Black Sea fleet. An Anglo-French force landed in the Crimea to seize the Russian naval base of Sevastopol” (Diplomacy, Henry Kissinger, Simon & Schuster, 1994, p. 93).]  (Russia’s Road to the Middle East)

Books & Blogs

Russia and the Russians, A History, by Geoffrey Hosking, Harvard University Press, 2001.

The Crimean War, A History, by Orlando Figes, Henry Holt and Co.

EU Global Strategy on Foreign and Security Policy, by William J. Burns and Federica Mogherini, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Russia and the Security of Europe, by Eugene Rumer, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Why Did Russia Give Away Crimea Sixty Years Ago?, by Mark Kramer, Wilson Center.