аргументы и факты

‘Века пройдут, прежде чем русские прольют даже малую долю крови, пролитой французами в крестовых походах за Святые Места. Русские в крестовых походах не участвовали...’ - Крымская война (The Crimean War: A History by Orlando Figes) - Pg.5
...
Lord Heytesbury, the British ambassador in St Petersburg, declared (without any intended irony) that the Sultan would soon become as ‘submissive to the orders of the Tsar as any of the Princes of India to those of the [East India] Company’. The British may have totally supplanted the Mughal Empire in India, but they were determined to stop the Russians doing the same to the Ottomans, presenting themselves as the honest defenders of the status quo in the Near East. [pdf]