Standoff in Ukraine

The allure of the West has helped shape Russian history since Peter the Great three centuries ago. Now it’s shattering even older bonds with Russia’s neighbor, Ukraine. In 2013, a rebellion in Kyiv sparked by pro-European protesters seeking a decisive break from the nation’s Soviet past set in motion a chain of events that created the tensest standoff between Russia and the West since the Cold War. Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014, proclaiming a duty