BESIDES realist geopolitics, experts have pointed to Russia’s (or rather Vladimir Putin’s) invasion of Ukraine as rooted in an imperial nostalgia.

For Putin, it is utterly unacceptable that Ukraine will be drawn into the United States (US)-led “Western” sphere of influence, and the humiliation he felt when the Soviet Union disintegrated convinced him that military might is the only way to compensate for failures to constrain Ukraine diplomatically and geopolitically.