A new political order is in place and the economy has recovered and grown since the collapse of 1998. Russia has vast natural resources, not least in oil and gas.

State-run gas monopoly Gazprom is the world’s largest gas producer and exporter, with enormous reserves at its disposal. It supplies around a quarter of Europe’s gas needs and has ambitions on the Asian and US markets. Russia is also one of the world’s largest oil exporters.

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The country impresses with its diversity and size. Spanning 10 time zones, this Eurasian land mass covers more than 17m sq km. Its climate ranges from the Arctic north to the generally temperate south.

The annual Victory Day parade marks the end of World War II

In the privatisation years of the 1990s Russia provided entrepreneurs with the potential for rich pickings. A small number of them, often referred to as oligarchs, acquired vast interests in the energy and media sectors.

Some analysts believed that the then president, Boris Yeltsin, allowed their influence to extend too far into the political field but President Putin soon made it clear that there was no question of that with him in charge.

Some oligarchs found themselves facing criminal 100 dating free internet online
and one or two household names felt it necessary to leave Russia.

One of them, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former head of the Yukos oil company, is now serving eight years in a Siberian penal colony having been convicted on tax and fraud charges.

He had not confined his activities to business but had let his support for liberal politics be known. Yukos’s assets were later acquired by the state owned oil giant, Rosneft.

Chechnya and the West

While Russians make up more than 80% of the population and Orthodox Christianity is the main religion, there are many other ethnic and religious groups. Muslims are concentrated among the Volga Tatars and the Bashkirs and in the North Caucasus.

St Petersburg’s State Hermitage houses a vast art collection

Chechnya remains prominent in the headlines. Many thousands have died since Russian troops were first sent in to put down a separatist rebellion in 1994 and guerrilla fighters continue to mount attacks. However, the Kremlin faced less criticism from the West over its actions in Chechnya in the aftermath of the 11 September attacks on the US.

Since then, Moscow has presented its war against Chechen separatism as part of the global war against international terrorism. It insists that its hard-line policies there are working and that peace is returning.

This has frequently been called into question as violence flares with tragic regularity across Chechnya and the wider North Caucasus.

Russia’s support for the US-led campaign against international terrorism also had an impact on relations with Nato. The two sides agreed in 2002 to set up the Nato-Russia Council, giving Russia a say in counter-terrorism policies.

Nevertheless, Russia firmly opposed the US-led military action against Iraq in 2003, insisting that UN weapons inspectors be given as much time as they needed to do their work.

Despite US concerns, Moscow agreed in 2005 to supply fuel for Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor. Amid global concern over Iran’s nuclear programme, Russia opposed sanctions and only backed a UN resolution imposing them after the proposals had been watered down.

It has consistently shown that its desire to build new international relationships will not deter it from going its own way on key issues.

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