It may appear that we’re back in the USSR, but a lot has changed in Russia since the 1980s

There’s a vintage feel about the events taking place today but for all their superficial similarities it would be a mistake to revert to old assumptions, writes Mary Dejevsky

Supporters of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny march to demand his release from prison in Moscow (Getty)

Shut your eyes and you could almost be back in the latter stages of the Cold War. A new US president has held his first phone call with the Kremlin ruler, where he talked about “acting firmly in defence of US national interests” in a conversation described by the Kremlin as “businesslike and frank”. 

Clutching at one of the few areas where the two countries still speak a common language, they expressed an interest in further nuclear arms control and agreed to extend the last remaining Cold War-era accord – the successor of the original Start treaty on long-range nuclear weapons – for another five years, rather than let it expire next month.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin’s foreign minister is trying to exploit what could be a new climate between the superpowers by relaunching a Palestinian proposal for an international conference on the Middle East, sometime in the spring or summer. And human rights are back on the agenda, as Moscow and the west clash verbally over the fate of a PR-savvy dissident, whose activist wife is now fronting his cause. Police are beating up and detaining protesters, raiding apartments and finding reasons to keep the dissident himself locked up. Europe is tentatively trying to keep an east-west dialogue open, against the better judgement of hawks on the other side of the Atlantic.