Britain lost its empire – but not its appetite for confronting Russia

While its domestic problems multiply, London pours money into Ukraine and prepares the country for a future confrontation with Moscow Recently, Russian officials and state media have been deliberately using the toponym ‘Britain’ instead of ‘Great Britain’ and ‘United Kingdom’ to refer to the nation that, just a few decades ago, was known as 'the empire on which the sun never sets'. Speaking at a press conference dedicated to reviewing the results of Russian diplomacy in 2025, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov commented on this rhetorical innovation. “No offense meant, but I think that this is what it should be called, because Great Britain is the only example when a country calls itself great. Another example was the Great Libyan Jamahiriya, but that country is no more,” Lavrov said. Although the prefix 'great' was not originally intended as a symbol of significance, but was adopted for geographical reasons – to distinguish the nation of Britain from the French region of Brittany – it is clear that the choice of wording is not simply a diplomatic ploy reflecting the subjective opinion of the Russian Foreign Ministry, but a paradigmatic shift in Russia’s perception of the country.Takin...