By Tim Potier

It has been over a decade since I last wrote an op-ed piece for The Cyprus Mail. It feels like a long time. So long that, a couple of days ago, I searched my computer to see if I could find the last article I wrote for the paper. I believe it was on the Arab Spring (remember that?), but I am not sure. A lot has happened (including for me) since.

Top of the list is moving to Moscow to live and work. An omen, maybe. Joking apart, it has been quite a journey since. I lived in Moscow for five years. I was there when the current war in Ukraine started. They were the happiest years of my life. I did not want to leave, but my family were worried about me, so I left.

I have not been back since. I miss Russia. I have told my former university (MGIMO) that I would like to return, at least in some capacity, as soon as the situation normalises. Of course, they may not want me back.

Since then, I have spent a significant amount of time working in China. I like the Chinese very much, but, coming from the West, you feel such a fish out of water in the country. It is like stepping into another world. You get stared at, despite looking the same as all of you.

Now I am trying to spend more time in Cyprus. I am tired of living out of a suitcase. When I flew back to Cyprus in early mid-November, I had been travelling non-stop for seven months. I was exhausted, a bit fed up and I returned to a house with my elder son gone (himself to university). It had always been I who had been away and now he was absent. This hit me hard.

Early on in Moscow, I remember telling a class of students that I thought international affairs had, until recently, become boring. This would have been during President Trump’s first year in office. Well, the world has certainly not been dull since. I wish it was 2016 again. Before the Brexit referendum.

I think even those who knew me then have forgotten that I left Cyprus with the intention of standing for the UK parliament. Unfortunately, I returned just when the country had voted to leave the European Union and I was an ardent Remainer. I still am. I suppose I should now describe myself as an ardent Returner. I said leaving the European Union would be a disaster. It has proved to be a worse disaster than even I anticipated.

I remember, just days before the vote, at Royal Ascot (of all places), trying to explain (for 15 minutes) to one of my sisters why Brexit would be a disaster and at the end, upon concluding my monologue, all she could say was, “yes, but we want to be able to make our own decisions”. Truthfully, I felt I had just wasted 15 minutes of my life. Why bother, I thought. No one is listening. In the end, supporting a political party many of whose members voted Leave, I decided to suspend my ambition and move to Moscow instead. Like you do.

Before continuing, I feel I must clarify one thing. Why Moscow? Simple really. A child of the late Cold War, I had always been fascinated by Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. The Berlin Wall fell during my first term at university, my best friend at university ended up marrying his Czech girlfriend (my wife and I remain friends of theirs to this day) and I wrote my PhD on the conflicts in the south Caucasus. So, moving to Moscow, a city I already loved, was (at least as far as I was concerned) the opportunity of a lifetime.

In this fortnightly column of mine, starting today, I will write about international affairs, although I am actually an international lawyer. No doubt, I will be writing a lot about Russia, besides other things and places. However, allow me, in this first article, to say the following. I love the country and its culture.

In my opinion, Russia has the world’s greatest authors. Don’t believe me? Well (actually) read War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, as well as the short stories of Nikolai Gogol (a Ukrainian, by the way) and Anton Chekhov. It has many of the world’s greatest composers: Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Rimsky-Korsakov and Shostakovich (to name just four). And, though still largely undiscovered (outside of the countries of the former Russian Empire), many wonderful painters: including Ivan Kramskoi, Vasily Polenov and – my favourite and Russia’s Constable – Ivan Shishkin.

Sadly, though, Russia has let itself down. Terribly.

If any of you have felt suddenly transported into some kind of virtual un-reality in recent days, please don’t feel alone. I have too, although it has been a while I have been wondering if the world has gone completely mad. What has happened to the United States? The Gulf of Mexico, Canada, Greenland, Gaza and now Ukraine. I asked a colleague in the States, a few days ago. “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Please advise,” I concluded.

Has the United States grown tired of being a superpower? I hope not. The rest of the world may not (to varying extents) always agree with what it does, but, I have always told people in Russia and in China, its heart is in the right place. Now I am not sure where the West stands. Unless it comes to its senses, defeated, I fear. This is something I could never have imagined writing. Thus, looking towards a future, if such were to occur, that I survey it with much trepidation. Pity.

Professor Tim Potier is a non-resident Senior Fellow in the Center for International Law and Governance, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University (US). He is also a consultant with tailormadesolutions.org.