The invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact forces, predominantly Soviet troops, overnight on August 21, 1968, has much in common with what Russia is doing in Ukraine today.
In May, Moscow's Basmanny District Court issued a default arrest warrant for Latvian IT specialist Viesturs Kavacs in a criminal case over damage to a Soviet monument.
Bulgarian Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov said that countries in Southeast Europe must do everything possible to prevent Russia from imposing on Ukraine a future reminiscent of the dark Soviet era.
Russia has decided to re-establish the Soviet counter-intelligence (CI) organization "Smersh" and in early January 2024, an open-source image showed operatives apparently wearing Smersh uniform patches.
The Russian army is de-mothballing old Soviet tanks T-54 and T-55, accepted for service in 1946. A batch of such tanks was spotted being shipped by rail from Russia’s Far East.