No dictator lasts for ever. One day Vladimir Putin will be gone. Recent reports suggest growing weakness in the Russian economy, discontent in society and a waning of confidence inside his regime – but it would be foolish to conclude the end is near. Only death or Russia can depose Putin, and nobody knows when or how that will happen. What democracies in Europe and beyond can do is hone a strategy to defeat his external ambitions. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of eight elements of such a strategy.
Have a clear purpose. Putin aims to subjugate Ukraine, restore as much as possible of the Russian empire, destroy the credibility of Nato, undermine the European Union and re-establish a Russian sphere of influence over eastern Europe. To prevent him achieving these goals is to defeat him.
Stay the course with Ukraine. On 11 June, Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine will have lasted longer than the first world war. Ukraine’s achievement in holding off a much larger adversary is astonishing. Given the drone-enabled kill zone at the frontline, this war is most unlikely to be decided at the front, but both sides are pummelling each other’s rear, hitting energy infrastructure, the economy and morale. The withdrawal of US support by President Donald Trump has made the defence of Ukraine more difficult, but not crippled it. The fall of Viktor Orbán in Hungary has unblocked €90bn of European economic support, which should see the Ukrainian budget through to the end of 2027. Many trajectories are possible but the most likely is that this war grinds on for some time.
Yet it won’t be over even when it’s over. Unlike on VE Day 1945, we won’t know who has won at the moment the shooting stops. The arrival of “peace” – most likely in the form of a ceasefire that becomes a longer-lasting freezing of hostilities along the current frontline – will be another moment of danger for Ukraine. Internally, all the social differences and traumas accumulated in years of war could explode in an angry presidential election campaign and highly divisive subsequent politics. Externally, Europe’s attention could rapidly turn elsewhere, as it turned away from Bosnia after the 1995 Dayton peace agreement. There is, alas, an entirely possible future in which the four-fifths of Ukraine that Russia does not occupy becomes a depopulated, internally conflicted, dysfunctional state. That would be a victory for Putin’s plan B, which is to ruin Ukraine if he can’t control it. Only when Ukraine is a reasonably prosperous, secure, stable and democratic member state of the EU will we be able to say that Putin has been defeated there.
Increase economic pressure on Russia. The perverse effect of Trump’s war of choice against Iran is an increase in Russia’s oil and gas revenues, and a partial lifting of sanctions on them. To defeat Putin, the opposite must happen. Beside tightening sanctions and supporting Ukraine’s long-range strikes on Russian energy infrastructure, Europe should crack down harder on Russia’s shadow fleet. Nearly half of Russia’s oil exports pass through the Baltic Sea, often in already sanctioned tankers.
Deter another Russian attack. Much attention is rightly paid to organising a five- to 10-year transition from today’s US-dependent European security to a position where Europe can defend itself. But the highest risk of a Russian attack on Nato and EU territory probably comes in the earliest years of that transition, especially in 2027-28. Putin is an old man in a hurry, obsessed with restoring Russian greatness and – as usually happens with longtime dictators – increasingly detached from reality. He has a large, battle-hardened army and a war economy. He faces a Europe that is only beginning to rearm and a US president who is unlikely to honour the Nato article 5 commitment to defend an east European member under attack. However, Putin can only rely on Trump being in the White House until 20 January 2029. So this is his best and perhaps last chance to demonstrate that Nato is a paper tiger. It wouldn’t need a massive frontal assault, just the seizure of a few square kilometres in Estonia, Lithuania, a Baltic island or somewhere else on the eastern flank.
Even if the probability of such an attack is low, the attendant risk is so high that reinforced deterrence is vital. If we could rely on the US president, the American-led Nato’s current dispositions would be adequate for that purpose. Since we can’t, we need rapidly to develop an alternative strategy, in which European (including, notably, German) forces currently serving in Nato commands, together with those in regional configurations such as the British-Nordic-Baltic-Dutch joint expeditionary force, could credibly deter such an attack themselves. That’s very challenging – and now essential.
Don’t only play defence on the hybrid front. An excellent recent paper from the European Council on Foreign Relations argues that, given the sheer scale of Russia’s hybrid campaign against Europe, we must not just defend but also disrupt and, in carefully circumscribed ways, go on the offensive. (Read it for more detail.)
Speak to all the Russias. There has been some discussion of a high-level European representative being empowered to talk to Putin. But what would they say, even if he were listening? Yes, it’s worth keeping channels of communication open to the Kremlin, including back channels. But the only language Putin really understands is military and economic force wielded with political will.
More important is talking to three other Russian constituencies: business, professional and even bureaucratic elites still in the country; wider Russian society; and the “Other Russia”, now living largely outside Russia and desiring the defeat of Putin more fervently than anyone. While the specific messages would be different, there would be a common theme: “another relationship with Russia is possible, if …” This will make little difference in the short term but can bear fruit when the moment of change comes.
See off our own nationalists. Putin has no immediate substitute for Hungary’s Orbán as Russia’s veto-player at the decision-making table in Brussels. Slovakia’s Robert Fico doesn’t compare. But anti-liberal, populist, nationalist parties are still making the running elsewhere in Europe. A French President Jordan Bardella in 2027, let alone the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) as the biggest party in the Bundestag in 2029, would give Putin new opportunities to divide Europe against itself.
Don’t just do something, stand there. I spent more years of my life than I care to remember studying western policies towards the Soviet Union. One conclusion was clear: the most important thing we did to win the cold war was not anything in our foreign policy but simply making our own societies secure, strong, prosperous and attractive – and then “standing there”. So also now. Significant political change in Russia might come tomorrow, or not for another 10 years. The most difficult challenge for a diverse bunch of liberal democracies is also the most important: strategic patience. Achieve it, and time will be on our side.