Ask Putin the next time you are blowing him. In speeches he has compared himself to Peter the Great.
Here is a clip from an article much of which is his own words.
"You might think he was fighting with Sweden, seizing their lands," Mr Putin said, referring to the Northern Wars which Peter launched at the turn of the 18th Century as he forged a new Russian Empire.
"But he seized nothing; he reclaimed it!" he said, arguing that Slavs had lived in the area for centuries.
"It seems it has fallen to us, too, to reclaim and strengthen," Mr Putin concluded, with a near-smirk that left no doubt he was referring to Ukraine and his aims there.
Peter's rule, he suggested, was proof that expanding Russia had strengthened it.
