Hello and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist.

I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

For much of history, it was cheaper to eat out than to eat in.

Not anymore. Far from it.

Yet the number of people dining out is only going up.

We examine the history of restaurants and the economic forces that have shaped them.

And read any good books lately?

Our staff sure have, and we've hopefully gathered up their recommendations for books of the year. Stockings prepare to be stuffed.

First up, though...

The massing of Russian troops at Ukraine's border continues to be a cause for worry.

Russia's president Vladimir, has been here before

having piled troops on the border in April. In May, he was quick to back the dictator of Belarus

when dissident journalists were plucked from a commercial flight and detained. The recent history

of these three Slavic countries has Mr. Putin's fingerprints all over it. To really understand

that, you have to go back almost exactly 30 years, to a meeting in December 1991 that it

seems Mr. Putin wishes hadn't happened.

Stanislav Shuchkiewicz, the leader of Belarus, was at a hunting lodge, hosting his

counterparts Leonid Kravchuk of Ukraine and Boris Yeltsin of the Russian Federation.

There, they agreed to dissolve the Soviet Union.

There's little, if anything, left to discuss after today's announcement.

For Boris Yeltsin and the Slav republics have a future, Mr. Gorbachev almost certainly does not. There was little that Mikhail Gorbachev the Union's leader could do. By Christmas, he had resigned. I'm going to go with the and with with your

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