Beware the “lessons of history” as drawn by charlatans, ignoramuses or tyrants, for they will be daft, wrong and possibly disastrous. The self-serving amateur historiography of Russian President Vladimir Putin is an example.
Last year, he invented a narrative “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” which was subsequently revealed as one of the hallucinations that made him attack Ukraine.
The other day, he was at it again, comparing himself to Peter the Great, and saying that “it seems it has fallen to us, too, to reclaim and strengthen.”
That implied he might like to wage war against Sweden as
Middle-East Arab News and Opinion - Asharq Al-Awsat is the world’s premier pan-Arab daily newspaper, printed simultaneously each day on four continents in 14 cities
Russian President Vladimir Putin paid tribute on Thursday (June 9) to Tsar Peter the Great on the 350th anniversary of his birth, drawing a parallel between what he portrayed as their twin historic quests to win back Russian lands. “Peter the Great waged the Great Northern War for 21 years. It would seem that he was at war with Sweden,.