How do we solve a problem like Putin? Five leading writers on Russia have their say

Tom Burgis is investigations correspondent at the Financial Times and author of Kleptopia (William Collins)

He grew rich. He rose. He grew richer. So did those on whom he bestowed his favour, those he licensed to loot. They fawned over him, told of his greatness. As for the rest, those in whose name he ruled, there was no need to seek their consent. Instead, to maintain control, he fed them fear while promising the antidote. They are coming, the others, those who wish us harm, wish to take what we have, but I will keep you safe. It was a double life: he was at once the thief and the guard.

Catriona Kelly is honorary professor of Russian and Soviet culture and senior research fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge and the author of St Petersburg: Shadows of the Past (Yale)

It is tempting to think that if Putin and his allies were to disappear, a rational solution would emerge. Yet substantial sections of the population still support Putin: those who share his prejudices about Ukraine; those convinced the west is out to destroy Russia; those for whom things have got better since 1991; those terrified things may get worse.

Push for proper peace talks, accompanied by a full ceasefire, and with participation in the talks of observers trusted by both sides. As the war drags on and casualties mount, and the economic costs begin to bite, there could be a change of heart on the Russian side. There are some signs of disunity at the top even now.

Oliver Bullough is the author of Moneyland: Why Thieves and Crooks Now Rule the World and How to Take It Back. His new book is Butler to the World (Profile)

So far, the war appears to be going very badly for Russia. Its assumptions about the country it chose to invade have been exposed as fatally flawed; years of expensive military reform have failed to produce an army capable of effectively fighting a war of choice; and it has had to deny asking the Chinese government to feed and arm its troops.

Whatever happens in Ukraine, it seems likely that Putin will remain in power for the foreseeable future. Nothing about his behaviour in the past decade has indicated that he would be willing to give up power voluntarily, and it seems unlikely that those in the best position to remove him will do so, not least because they are themselves closely tied to Putin and his crimes.

This raises the question of how western states respond to a Putin-led Russia and how they organise their relationships with one another. First, European states and the US need to recognise that there is no going back to the world before February 2022. On issues of strategic stability, cooperation, energy security, and indulgence towards the oligarch money that has corrupted their politics, there has to be a commitment to permanent change.

As a result, and because of a shameful view that what was happening in Ukraine or Belarus or the South Caucasus was not really a significant concern for Europe and the US, they failed both to properly respond to the first wave of Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014, or to think seriously enough about the implications for wider European security.

Those implications can hardly be overstated. The reaction to the war in Ukraine has shown that despite the repeated claims of the past two decades, it is only now that a line has been drawn under the post-cold war period. For the first time since the late 1980s, western states are being forced to confront the fact that a wider European war is possible (though still unlikely), and that it would involve conflict between states with nuclear weapons.

The gravity of the risks means that there needs to be an urgent recommitment to Nato as a defensive military alliance, including a commitment by all members to meet their obligations on defence spending. Those European states that have not joined, particularly those close to Russia, need to decide whether or not they want to remain outside the bloc in an era without the relatively stable rules of the cold war and where the ambiguity of the past 30 years is a vanished luxury. Neutrality is largely in the eye of the beholder, and if the Kremlin regards states as de facto allies of the US, lack of Nato membership is unlikely to protect them from whatever forms of aggression it will be capable of after Ukraine.

At the same time, even if it is unpalatable to talk about it now, there will also need to be engagement with the Russian government in some areas, as there was between the west and the USSR even in dark periods of the cold war such as the early 1980s.

Peter Pomerantsev is the author of Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia and This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality (Faber)

Some have called her a hero, others say it is too little too late. But whatever your take, ultimately solving the Putin problem and creating change in Russia means confronting the psychological grip he has on his own people. The mental model of Putinism, the worldview it constructs with propaganda of word and deed to keep Russians under control, is built on several foundations: it appeals to nostalgia; it projects a conspiratorial perspective and it insists that Putin can get away with anything, that there is no alternative to Putin. As oppositionally minded Russians, pro-democracy media, civil society activists and public diplomats from the west seek to engage the Russian people, they need to take into account the strengths and weaknesses of these foundations. Even if Putin manages to cut off the Russian internet even further (he has already shut down Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and the last independent radio and online television stations), there will always be ways to reach the Russian people, from virtual private networks to satellite TV. The question is what to talk to them about.