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ON 1 OCTOBER 1939, Winston Churchill made a famous speech in which he discussed the prospect of Russia joining the Second World War: 'I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.'

It didn't help that everyone I knew in Moscow had left. I'd had a Thursday-night poker game with expats and English-speaking Russians, and at its height in mid-1997 thirteen people regularly attended. But by January 2000 I was the only one left. It was like being the last passenger at an airport baggage carousel. Everyone else had got their luggage and gone home, but I was standing there all by myself, watching the creaking metal track go round and round, waiting for my bag - knowing it was lost and would never show up.

In any major crisis, what you do in the first few hours defines it for ever.