The annexation of the Crimean peninsula by Russia has outraged the West, but practically it can do little. President Vladimir Putin may be tempted to claim more of the former Soviet empire – but then he would have to contend with NatoFollowing the dissolution of the Soviet Union, there was widespread relief that such a momentous and largely unforeseen turn of events had been accompanied by so little bloodshed. The ­relatively peaceful death of the USSR could be contrasted favourably with the civil strife and outright barbarism that attended its birth.But this did not mean that Russia was spared other after-effects of empire. As is so graphically illustrated by the crisis in and around Ukraine, it is not just imperial nostalgia – Vladimir Putin’s famous remark about t