If you read only one newspaper article this weekend, read this one...

Edward Lucas in The Telegraph, his article entitled "Russia sees us as pawns on its chessboard" is well written, nicely analytical and very very worrying.

"Russian thinking is still rooted in a Soviet approach that leaves little room for the concept of mutual benefit. The "zero-sum" game is deeply entrenched: if something is good for the West, it is bad for Russia, and vice versa.

That chimes neatly with the story pushed on Russian state television that treacherous Russian politicians connived with the West in the 1990s to weaken the country. We promoted chaotic economic reform and phony democracy that enriched a handful and impoverished the rest, leaving Russia near disintegration until it was rescued by Putin's firm.

That is preposterous. In fact, the West provided billions of dollars to prop up Russia in the 1990s; it failed not because of our bad advice, but because of its appallingly difficult starting position and weak Russian leadership. Yet for that mythical wrong, Russia now wants revenge....

Russia's skilful pipeline politics has wrecked European attempts to diversify the continent's energy supplies. An EU-backed project called Nabucco, which would bring gas from Central Asia to Europe via Turkey and the Balkans, has been kyboshed. The Russian pipelines of Nord Stream (in the Baltic) and South Stream (across the Black Sea) form an effective pincer movement, eagerly backed by key Russian allies such as Germany and Austria, leaving Ukraine and Poland open to Russian energy blackmail.

Russia is a big investor in our economies; our bankers salivate at prospect of Russian bonds and stocks. The presence of Gerhard Schröder, the former German chancellor, on the board of the Nord Stream gas pipeline epitomises the way in which Russian influence has penetrated deep into our political system. Checkmate is looming."