After a lull of almost 50 years, Russia regained its status as a great power in the late 2030s, first as a result of the exhaustion of oil reserves in the Middle East and the annexation of Central Asia, then increasingly as the world’s major supplier of crops and fresh water as the permafrost melted, benefiting from the Great Shift North. It also reaped the rewards of intensive investment from the European Union as relations improved steadily from 2018 onwards. Between the decades of 2030 and 2060, Russia suffered of massive illegal immigration from its southern neighbors seeking its virtually infinite water and new arable lands. Mass protests swept Russia and various regions threatened to break away altogether unless a halt to the immigrants was declared. The government invested massively