Similar come-to-Jesus moments have recently visited such longtime Putin pals as Czech President Miloš Zeman and French nationalist Marine Le Pen. Shared complaints about the E.U., NATO, and the liberal international now share priority with a refreshed anti-Russian alliance, even among politicians who have benefited directly from Putin’s oligarchical state. “How Putin made the EU great again,” came the recent cheeky headline in Politico Europe.

The Russian incursion laid bare one of the fundamental dissonances within the industrialized world’s populist, right-wing, nationalist movements. Having long made the argument—with some cause—that multilateral institutions are elite, anti-democratic bodies corrosive to national sovereignty, the populists have never gotten around to proposing a replacement, but have instead cheered on whichever local strongman shares their critique.

Well, it turns out that nationalists untethered from mediating institutions tend not to be the nicest of neighbors. And their commitment to “sovereignty” is skin-deep.