The bear is back - mapping Russian revanchism

The bear is back - mapping Russian revanchism.

On March the 18th Russia annexed Crimea, marking the first time its borders have expanded since the Cold War.

Yet it has form, as the 20th century attests.

Before the Second World War, the Soviet Union's territory extended into modern-day Belarus and Ukraine, and included Crimea. By the war's end, both countries modern borders were a part of the USSR. So were the Baltic states.

During the Cold War an Iron Curtain descended over Eastern Europe and it stayed there until the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The map of Russia remained unchanged until this month when soldiers invaded Crimea and the region seceded from Ukraine.

So a quarter century after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a hungry Russia has returned.