The British Museum’s director is adept at forging links where politicians have failed. As Russia’s Hermitage gains from his latest negotiations over the Parthenon marbles, one BBC journalist recalls watching past triumphs unfold

Geoffrey Robertson and Amal Clooney helped Greece fight for the return of the Elgin Marbles. Britain refuses to listen, but has shocked the art world by secretly loaning one of the antiquities to Russia.

Moscow is waging a highly effective information war in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania with its “Russia Today” television broadcasts in their national languages, a war that the West must respond with its own efforts, according to Elina Lange-Ionatamishvili, a NATO specialist on counter-propaganda.

Like Ukraine, Moldova has become a geo-strategic competition between Brussels and Moscow. And like Ukraine, Russia will be determined not to let the country slip away from its influence. As shown during the election campaign, Russia will attempt to use its version of soft power to continue to meddle in Moldova.

Twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall signaled the collapse of the Kremlin’s grip on eastern Europe, Russia is reasserting some of its lost influence.  That is most obvious in Ukraine, where unmarked tanks roll across the countryside in support of pro-Russian separatists.

Russia under President Vladimir Putin doesn't rely much on soft power to get its way abroad, in the same way it doesn't do much liberal democracy at home. It does, however, do manipulation, and Europe is only just waking up to how much and how well.