As with Barkashov’s fighters who escaped through underground tunnels, the ideas and slogans that inspired these rebels continued to smolder under the surface, like a peat fire, occasionally letting off smoke or a nasty smell. The fire was never properly extinguished; it was simply covered up in the hope that it would die by itself. Twenty years later Vladimir Putin would fan the embers into the large flames that are now consuming parts of Ukraine and threatening Russia’s own future.
