From an AP story by Jim Heintz headlined “For nearly a quarter century, an AP correspondent watched the Putin era unfold in Russia”:

NARVA, Estonia — At the Ivangorod-Narva border crossing, the last glimpse of Russia is of a sprawling fortress and the first sight of Estonia is another fortress on the other bank of a slender river. They’re almost comically close: People with strong arms could have a game of catch between the ramparts.

But the proximity is deceptive — the psychological distance between Estonia and Russia is immense and only widening. The countries that once were part of the Soviet Union took radically different paths after the USSR’s collapse.