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What have the increased prospect of a new generation of nuclear power stations in Britain and the diminishing prospect of Kosovo getting independence next month got in common? Well, the short answer is Russia's reassertiveness on the world stage.

On The World Tonight and Today this week we are taking an in-depth look at Russia to try to make sense of how the country has changed and where it may be going.

When Russia reduced the flow of gas to Ukraine at the beginning of last year, European consumers were hit as some of that gas was also bound for Europe which gets an increasingly large proportion of its oil and gas from Russia. Moscow insisted the dispute with Ukraine was commercial - essentially Russia wanted to start charging market rates to its neighbour instead of the subsidised prices left over from the Soviet era and they accused the Ukrainians of stalling in negotiations. Some Ukrainians and Western Europeans said it was political because Moscow did not like the new pro-Western government in Ukraine.

Whatever the reason, it sent shock waves through government circles in Europe and provided impetus for plans for EU countries to diversify their energy supplies.

In Britain, part of the reasoning behind the government's decision that new nuclear power stations are needed is the worry that in the near future the country could become too dependent on energy imports from places like Russia which can't be trusted to keep the gas flowing even if the bills are paid.

Russia is also taking a different line from the West on the future of the Serbian province of Kosovo. Kosovo has been run by the United Nations for the past eight years since NATO drove Yugoslav security forces out of the province during their offensive against the separatist guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army.

The US and many EU countries want the province - largely populated by Albanians but with a Serb minority - to be given independence from Serbia, but the Serbs oppose this and have offered autonomy instead.

Russia says the decision on the future of Kosovo has to be agreed by Serbia as well as the Albanian majority, and given the future of the province should be decided by the United Nations Security Council, Russia could veto a resolution that leads to independence.

There are several other areas where Russia has a different policy to the West - over the Iranian nuclear programme, over the expansion of Nato, over America's plans to base some of its missile defence shield in eastern Europe to name the most prominent ones.

In the 1990s the Americans got used to Moscow either supporting its policies or at least not opposing them, so why has that changed?

Russia has some of the world's largest reserves of oil and gas as well as other commodities, and in the past few years, the rising price of these resources that are fuelling economic growth around the world, but especially in China, has led to a rapid recovery of the Russian economy which had hit rock bottom under Yeltsin in the 1990s. With the return of economic strength has come a return of self-confidence and independence in its foreign policy and a consolidation of central political power by President Putin.

How has this been done and why has it happened?

This week we want to try to answer these questions. The World Tonight's reporter Gabriel Gatehouse who used to work for the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳’s Russian Service will report for the programme from around the country and the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s Diplomatic Editor and former Moscow correspondent Bridget Kendall has been to provincial Russia for Today.

We hope it helps to explain recent events and put them into a wider perspective.