Alas, at the moment I can see no good reason to entertain 'Vlad the Impaler' anywhere and least of all at the Normandy beaches as we commemorate the 70th anniversary of D-day. The contribution of the Russian people in WWII was beyond heroic but that of their political class was cowardly and stupid beyond belief. Stalin et al would have sat back and smiled wolfishly if we had been over-run by Nazi Germany because, apart from any other consideration, they were too short-sighted, to forsee future implications if Mother Russia had been left alone in the slaughterhouse with Herr Hitler. However, thanks to the even greater stupidity of Hitler, the Russian leadership was given a lesson in all-too-real real-politik when the German onslaught took their tanks up to the suburbs of Moscow. There-after, the Russian people had to fight or die - and the threat of death came as much from their own despicable regime as it did from Hitler's.
In view of the fact that it was force majeure, not a genuine defence of democratic values, that forced them to fight, I really do not see what business 'Vlad the Impaler' has at the beaches of Normandy. In fact, it is an insult to the British, American and Canadian dead. Dunk the little Russian thug in the Channel and send him home, I say!