A fortune-telling piece published in the Financial Times yesterday attempts to predict the post-Putin future relationship between Russia and Europe, and offers some theories about why a Putin-led CIS Customs Union is unlikely to succeed.

Moscow’s current geopolitical goal, shaped by President Vladimir Putin’s nostalgic obsession with the country’s imperial past, is to recreate in a new guise something akin to the old Russian empire or the more recent Soviet “union”.

Mr Putin seems to harbour the naive notion that the leaders of the post-Soviet states will genuinely accept a subordinate role in a Kremlin-led entity. Some of the leaders do pay occasional lip service to that formula – but out of necessity, not conviction. All prefer independence: