Russia was once a place of fear and fascination – my children will know it only as a pariah state

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Sometimes they were played by German actors, although when Sylvester Stallone saved us from communism in Rocky IV it was Sweden’s Dolph Lundgren who played Ivan Drago, all hissing sibilants when he introduced himself as “a boxer from the Soviet Union” with his comically sinister entourage behind him. Those who cared to look also knew about the west’s shameful propping up of dictators because they were “our guys”. To keep up to speed with all the latest opinions and comment sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter by clicking here Will they hanker after joining a Russian ballet crowd, so much more vibrant than their stuffy English equivalents, with enthusiastic shouts of bravo ringing out when the dancers execute mastery of their craft? It will, I fear, be the latter as Russia becomes a baleful pariah with its leaders throwing periodic hissy fits to remind us that they’re there, with its people suffering under their brutal yoke as they did through most of the last century, as the hopes for better at its end were cruelly dashed on the altar of Putin’s monstrous ego.