Three signs of the times, all reflecting a different aspect of the bluster and Soviet nostalgia that have become some of the most alarming aspects of the Putin regime. The first is an announcement by Russia’s Defense Ministry that for the first time since 1990, army tanks and nuclear missiles will be part of the traditional May 9 Victory Day parade on Red Square commemorating the Soviet (rather than Allied) victory in World War II. Military parades in Red Square, reviewed by the country’s leaders standing on the Lenin mausoleum, were of course an iconic image of the late Soviet era -- the goose-stepping soldiers and the rumbling tanks a very visible boast of USSR military power. There were no parades at all between 1991 and 1994, after the Soviet Union collapsed, but they were revived by Yeltsin in 1995 to commemorate -- with Bill Clinton at his side -- the fiftieth anniversary of what the Defense Ministry’s press release tellingly calls “Russia’s victory in the WW2.” This year, in keeping with Putin’s dreams of reviving Russia’s power and glory, the parade will be back to something close to the full-scale military pageants of Soviet days. According to Moscow Military District Commander Vladimir Bakin, Russia’s newest generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles, the Topol-M, will be making an appearance alongside tanks, armored personnel carriers and 6,000 officers and soldiers in newly designed uniforms.

The second piece of back-to-the-future news is a new history textbook that was approved by the Ministry of Education earlier this month. The newly commissioned textbooks generated a controversy last summer, but the final result goes much further in retelling history the Putin way than any of the historians I spoke to then had feared. The final version of the standard secondary school book, titled "Russian History from 1945-2007," contains such gems as “Stalin was an effective manager" because he “took Russia from the plow to the atomic bomb in a few years”;  the purges and the death of millions were “necessary” to industrialize Russia so quickly. Gorbachev and Yeltsin are criticized for letting the Soviet Union fall apart, while Putin is also praised for restoring a “strong, vertically integrated state." Putin’s nationalization of the Yukos oil company is described as the Kremlin’s victory over "oligarchs who hoped to maintain personal control over the Russian government;" Putin instead “put the country's wealth back into the hands of the Russian people.”

The final example is a classic piece of Kremlin petulance -- of a piece with the massive overreaction to Georgia’s expulsion of several alleged Russian spies early last year that triggered a Russian embargo on Georgian wine and produce, the cutting off of all air, rail, postal and banking ties, as well as a nationwide program of harassment of Georgian citizens. This time the UK is the target -- Britain’s crime being to formally ask for the extradition of Andrei Lugovoi, accused by the British Crown Prosecution Service of poisoning Alexander Litvinenko in London in November 2006. Russia’s Foreign Ministry has ordered the regional offices of the British Council -- a cultural organization similar -- to close after alleged tax violations. But last week Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov admitted that the closures were a “reaction” to the ongoing UK-Russia extradition row. Britain has refused to back down, opening the offices in St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg after the New Year break as scheduled. Russia no doubt will find a way to enforce compliance -- despite the fact that the offices are on Consulate territory, protected by the Vienna Convention. It’s a long way from the warmth of the Blair-Putin relationship. Or the pomp of Putin’s 1993 State visit to Britain. The question is, why does Russia need to pick a fight like this, and why now? The short answer is probably nothing to do with strategy, but just officials’ personal pique which the strutting Kremlin has allowed to grow into a supposed show of strength. Just like parading nukes on Red Square and rewriting history, it’s all part of Putin’s new narrative of national greatness.