Vladimir Putin: 'The iron curtain was fatal'

Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed that Moscow will not allow itself to become isolated behind another iron curtain.

He was speaking a year on from the start of mass protests in Ukraine, which resulted in the toppling of the country's pro-Russian president.

Relations between Russia and the west then deteriorated sharply, with heated exchanges, sanctions and rising military tension.

The term iron curtain is used to describe the political and ideological barrier that isolated the then-Soviet Union from the west during the Cold War.

The BBC's World Affairs Editor, John Simpson, reports from Moscow.