 One of the problems we face in the Crimea is that in the West, not just the geographical West, but the West has advanced democratic, economically active states, we've rather forgotten old fashioned, hardline, 19th century nationalism, the idea that it doesn't matter, it's just my country and I'm prepared to break all the rules. The Russians are led by a nationalist president whose agenda is to make Russia great again. Sevastopol in the Crimea is a hero city of both the old Russian Empire and of the Soviet Union. A million Russians died defending this city. It's at the epicentre of their memory of who they are. Leo Tolstoy fought in the siege of Sevastopol in the 1850s. All those battle scenes in war and peace, they're straight out of the Crimean War because he was there. So this matters to the Russians in ways that we in the West have probably lost touch with. For a nationalist president to just allow it to drift off into some foreign country which may become part of the European Union and NATO is absolutely unacceptable. Putin is not able to do that if he wishes to retain power. It's not possible. One of the most recent developments was the referendum that is held in Crimea. What do you think about that? This is just a veneer. This is a 19th century plebiscite under the barrel of a gun. The striking thing is of course that the Russians have managed this with very, very little use of significant violence. There's been a bit of shouting and a bit of knocking down of walls but very few deaths and the Ukrainians have very wisely not turned this into a fight because they would lose and lose very badly. So the Russians have secured their aims and they now are going to have to sit back and digest the consequences. They will be economic isolation, collapse in any economic growth, almost certainly decline in living standards, major export of wealth, further impoverishment of what is already a pretty shaky economy. And of course what most people in the West have forgotten is that the last time the West and the Russians fought over the Crimea in the Crimean War of 1854 to 56, the war was decided by an economic blockade. Russia in the 1850s was a major exporter of bulky primary produce in those days grain, timber, iron and the West stopped buying. The Russians couldn't export, their economy collapsed. What are the broader implications for this act by putting in the global community and the global thing? I think it's interesting that China abstained in the United Nations, it didn't vote with the Russians, didn't vote against them but they abstained. And the Russian-Chinese axis which has been quite significant in the case of Syria is less significant here because the Chinese are not going to approve this but they're not going to disapprove it either. They don't want to break bridges with the rest of the world in order to back the Russians because they actually have their own issues with the Russians. Large parts of what is still Russia were seized from the Chinese in the mid-19th century in a very unfair treaty which the Chinese don't talk about yet but they probably will in the future. All of the area around Vladivostok was Chinese until 1859 and the Chinese who have a history of asking for their territory back may well get around to asking for that bit back in the fullness of time. What the Russians have done is very old-fashioned they've gone back to the old ways of doing politics and business and they've suggested that they at least are not a force for modernity and their role in the future is managing decline, it's certainly not recovering greatness. There's no sign that Russia is moving forward. Putin has talked about rebuilding the Russian Navy for 20 years, it hasn't happened. They just don't have the money, the human resources, the infrastructure, the assets to do these things so they're living in a post-imperial decline mode. It's a little like the British and Suez in 1956. Ultimately it's probably not a very clever piece of politics but it plays very strongly to a domestic agenda which still sees Russian control, Russian Empire, Russian power as a very powerful motivator. I think Putin's problem is that popular as it is at home is very unpopular abroad and it will have negative consequences but the Russians are more prisoners of their history than most and you can't rewrite the history.