Empires eventually end amid blood and dishonour
The academic Dominic Lieven argues that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a case in point
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A worker sets a cross on a grave at a cemetery in Irpin, Ukraine.
PHOTO: AFP
Dominic Lieven
Empires are great powers.
Their demise is usually accompanied by geopolitical convulsions and wars. They are also multinational polities with peoples living cheek by jowl. Turning an empire into nation states with sharply defined sovereign peoples and borders seldom comes without great conflict. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a case in point.
