This article of mine appears in The First Post.In the Panorama Museum in Sevastopol last week I gazed at one of the world's most incredible paintings, The Defence of Sevastopol by Franz Roubaud. The 360-degree, 14 metres high, 2,000 square metre masterpiece, depicts in great detail one day's fighting during the siege of the city during the Crimean War. That bloody conflict was brought about by Western attempts to push the Russian Fleet out of the Black Sea. Today, 154 years after the start of the first Crimean War, could history be about to repeat itself? The prospect of a new conflict on this Black Sea peninsula seemed unreal on a beautiful late summer's afternoon. In Sevastopol's pretty seaside park, close by the port which is still home to Russia's Black Sea fleet, young and old appeared not to have a care in the world....
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