He, too, probably tried to understand Russia, Winston Churchill: »It is a riddle within a secret surrounded by a mystery«, he said more than 70 years ago. His words are strange.Russia - an enigma, a secret, a mystery? In any case, in 2015 Russia seems a country, isolated in the world, neither East nor West, once again standing outside of time. After the conquest of Crimea and the initiation of an undeclared-declared war in south-eastern Ukraine, the peace order in Europe has been shaken. Europe, itself increasingly weakened and insecure, has to face a dangerous challenge: Because this new Russia - it is Putin's Russia - sees itself as a revisionist power of order on its own Eurasian continent, as a moral and political counterpoint with its own civilizing mission, turning away from theWest.Without claiming to be complete, this book is intended as a contribution to critical analysisandto therequiredrhetoricaldisarmamentbe.Itisalbeit full of courage, supported by my sympathy for all the people in Russia and Ukraine who defy nationalist furor and the apparently irreversible lack of rights of their people in an admirable way. They do what is necessary with a good heart. They struggle in the daily disasters of their everyday lives. You care about others. They don't sell their souls. Heirs of a bloody century of revolutions, wars and terror,would likeyouFinallyinPeaceWithitselfandtheirNeighborsLife.It's confidence, not certainty: that they will be there when Vladimir Putin is history.