VLADIMIR PUTIN IS DESTROYING RUSSIA'S FUTURE

Vladimir Putin was willing to pay a high price for a gain, but is ending up paying a higher price than he imagined for no gain.

- JOHN DOBSON

I love Russia. For three years I had the privilege of living in that wonderful country, travelling from Murmansk in the north to Novorossiysk in the south, Vladivostok in the east to Kaliningrad in the west, meeting thousands of wonderful people on the way. I have always been awestruck by its culture. For centuries, Russia has produced some of the greatest composers, the greatest authors and many of the world's great scientists. Russia's geography and size are breath-taking. With eleven time zones, Russia is the largest country in the world, with nearly twice the landmass of China and more than five times that of India. Moscow, where I lived, has an underground metro system with some of the most stunning stations in the world. St Petersburg, in my view the most beautiful city on the planet, has a museum, the Hermitage, containing almost 14 miles of marbled corridors and more than 3 million artefacts. It's said that if you spent one minute looking at each, you would be there for 6 years. So many superlatives apply to Russia, but sadly, there are only two words to describe its leaders: "abysmal" and "corrupt”. No more so than the current one, Vladimir Putin, a dictator who is currently destroying Russia's future.

The time I lived in Moscow was one of optimism and excitement. Mikael Gorbachev had introduced a policy of glasnost-openness, which meant that people were speaking the truth for the first time in decades. When on our Christmas Day in 1991 I saw the old Soviet red flag with its hammer and sickle lowered over the Kremlin, directly opposite the British Embassy, and the new tricolour flag of Russia hoisted high, I joined many Russians in feeling the real possibility of change, and thought it could be change for the better.