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Ancient and modern

Ukraine vs Sparta

Lessons from Thucydides on the present crisis

10 May 2014

9:00 AM

10 May 2014

9:00 AM

As rebels, terrorists, fascists, foreign forces, activists, separatists, militants, militias, nationalist groups, Neo-Nazis, Right Sector forces — take your pick — spread civil war across the increasingly lawless cities of eastern Ukraine, a pro-Russian commander helpfully commented ,‘We have God in our hearts, and they have cockroaches in their brains’.

In 431 bc the so-called ‘Peloponnesian war’ broke out between Athens and Sparta.

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