Whither Rus?

What's all this about? Why now?

Four thoughts:

• there is currently loads of oil money washing about (so I'm told), boosting the confidence of the ruling elite, who, Nero-like, continue with violin practice while the Third Rome burns;
• America, pinned down, appears relatively weak;
• ahead of the "difficult" changeover in 2008, an appeal to "great power" nostalgia looks as though it might be helpful at home in binding and rallying the swindled masses to the patriotic cause of the state; and
• those proposals for positioning missile-defence systems in central-eastern Europe can't have helped.