Russia - Roderick Braithwaite

Russia is the largest country in the world, with the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons. Over a thousand years this multifaceted nation of shifting borders has been known as Rus, Muscovy, the Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union. Thirty years ago it was reinvented as the Russian Federation. Russia is not an enigma, but its past is violent, tragic, sometimes glorious, and certainly complicated. Like the rest of us, the Russians constantly rewrite their history. They too omit episodes of national disgrace in favour of patriotic anecdotes, sometimes more rooted in myth than reality. Expert and former ambassador to Russia Rodric Braithwaite unpicks fact from fiction to discover what lies at the root of the Russian story.

Rodric Braithwaite was British Ambassador to Moscow during the crucial years of 1988-92. Subsequently he was foreign policy advisor to John Major. His books include the highly praised and bestselling Afgantsy and Moscow 1941.