Understanding Russia Better Through Her History: Sevastopol, an Enduring Geostrategic Centre of Gravity
UNDERSTANDING RUSSIA BETTER THROUGH HER HISTORY: SEVASTOPOL, AN ENDURING GEOSTRATEGIC CENTRE OF GRAVITY Recent events in Crimea, Eastern Ukraine and Syria have aerospace industries, made Sevastopol a closed city during brought Russia’s increasingly assertive foreign policy and the Cold War. Thereafter, despite being under Ukrainian burgeoning military power into sharp relief. Such shows of jurisdiction until March 2014, it remained very much a force surprised those in the West who thought that a new, Russian city, in which the Russian national flag always flew pacific and friendly Russia would emerge from the former higher than the Ukrainian. Soviet Union. That has never been Russia’s way as a major Furthermore, the Russian world power. This monograph argues that Vladimir Putin’s Navy continued to control the “” Russia has done no more than act in an historically consistent port leased from the Ukraine, Sevastopol’s and largely predictable manner. Specifically, it seeks to including its navigation systems. population, explain why possession of Sevastopol – the home of the Sevastopol’s population, Black Sea Fleet for more than 200 years – provides Russia containing many military containing many with considerable geostrategic advantage, one that is being retirees and their dependants, military retirees and exploited today in support of her current operations in Syria. remained fiercely loyal to Russia their dependants, and never accepted Ukrainian Sevastopol, and more particularly its ancient predecessor, rule – which they judged as a remained fiercely the former Greek city of Chersonesos, has a highly-symbolic historical accident at best, or, at loyal to Russia and place in Russia’s history and sense of nationhood.
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