Year in review 2014: Russian president Vladimir Putin goes back to the USSR

"If there is anything we have learnt about Putin in 2014", says Charles Grant, director of the London-based Centre for European Reform, "[it’s] that he’s even more paranoid about the West in general and America in particular than we previously assumed.

“He believes the West is out to get him and he believes that he is fighting to preserve Russia’s honour and his regime.”

To make things worse, says Grant, who has met Putin several times, the Russian leader appears to have grown increasingly complacent about the state of his country’s economy. “It’s become quite clear that he doesn’t really accept the western analysis of the Russian economy – that it needs to diversify, that it shouldn’t be so dependent on exports of natural resources, that it needs more foreign investment and that the rule of law needs improving,” he says. “He doesn’t seem to accept any of that. That’s worrying.”