Contributor(s): Professor Michael Burleigh | How have Britain and Russia dealt with loss of empire and what impact has it had on their self-understanding and politics? Britain and Russia have often been extremely suspicious of each other’s intentions, yet they share some fundamental things in common, beyond an unhealthy preoccupation with secret agents. Some claim that after 60 years Britain has still not adjusted to the post imperial era, and that this is reflected in Brexit - with its inability to accept that Ireland is a separate country, not to mention calls for an ‘Anglosphere’ or Empire 2.0 as an alternative to EU membership. The Russian loss of empire was a much more sudden affair in the early 1990s as 13 states became independent and Russia emerged from the polyglot Soviet carapace. Some claim that Russia is suffering from phantom limb syndrome, with President Putin pillaging the imperial past to create a new Russian identity, which does not mask the failure of his regime to di
