Don’t mistake Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin’s absence from the public eye for a decline in his influence. His influence remains strong, as confirmed by two recent news items.

Philippe Pétain embodies both the greatest moment and the darkest chapter in modern French history. Who was he really?

Last week, few people remembered Vladimir Ulyanov’s (Lenin’s) birthday. Among those who did mark the date was the Turgenev Library in Paris: on April 22, the complete 55-volume collected works of the leader of the Russian Revolution were ceremoniously carried out from its shelves. Parisian supporters of Lenin tried to intervene in the process.

“Siberianization” reflects the Russian authorities’ anti-European course, in which they have chosen complete economic dependence on China instead of cooperation with the West. Meanwhile, in China, there have long been dreams of reclaiming Siberian territories, which are considered there to have been unjustly ceded to the Russian Empire.