In early June, Ukraine’s president publicly invited Vladimir Putin to meet and end a war now in its fifth year. Putin’s response—that talks were pointless unless Ukrainian forces left occupied territory and Kyiv abandoned its NATO ambitions—was blunt and predictable. The exchange was small amid much larger clashes, but it crystallised a broader problem: five years of sanctions, diplomatic isolation and moral condemnation from Western capitals have not produced the outcome the West hopes for.

A common Western explanation is tactical: sanctions have not been harsh or sophisticated enough. The less comfortable answer is analytical: many Western analysts never really understood the society they tried to pressure.

For two decades the dominant Western vocabulary for describing Russia has leaned on words like authoritarian, fascist and totalitarian. Those labels carry an implied story: the state rules by brute coercion, ordinary Russians are passive victims, and removing a leader would collapse the system. That story is emotionally satisfying because it explains Russian actions without asking why millions of Russians might accept or even endorse parts of the regime’s project.

This line of thinking obscures another reality: beneath changing borders and rulers, there is a durable Russian identity—linguistic, cultural and religious—that shapes how Russians view their state and the world. Scholarship and commentary often reduce Russian identity to imperial nostalgia or conquest. But the history of the Russian-speaking world is more complex; people’s sense of distinctness from the West predates and will likely outlast any single leader.

Most Russians recognise their political class is corrupt and inept. Polling consistently shows widespread cynicism toward elites and awareness of mismanagement. Yet the same public that mocks governors and mistrusts oligarchs tends to see Russia as a separate civilisation, not merely a dysfunctional state in need of Western-style reform. This sense of separateness is an important part of what gives the current order its resilience.

At the same time, many Russians are realistic about what the Kremlin has delivered. They value stability, the visible improvements in some cities, and the reassertion of national strength. But they also know about stagnant regions, demographic decline and technological dependencies exposed by sanctions. Their support often reflects a trade-off: tolerate corruption and economic limits in exchange for sovereignty and a distinct path.

Western commentary tends to focus on the top-down features of the Russian state—the security services, censorship and the vertical of power. Less attention goes to the bottom-up forces: how society holds the state accountable in informal ways and how public opinion constrains political choices. Many Russians are skilled at reading and discounting official messaging, a legacy of decades of living with state propaganda. That sophistication means the Kremlin’s ability to manufacture total obedience is weaker than some portrayals suggest.

Putin’s approval ratings rose early in the war but have since softened. The decline is not primarily linked to battlefield losses; it reflects tangible economic pressures at household level: higher taxes, stagnating investment and shrinking real incomes. These are the kinds of grievances that erode support, not simple exposure to alternative news.

Diplomacy has failed to bring peace so far. Negotiations in various capitals, talks in neutral venues and repeated rounds of diplomacy have not ended the conflict. Economic sanctions, the West’s main instrument, have imposed real costs on Russia. Yet those costs have often reinforced a different narrative: Russia as a besieged civilisation, where hardship is framed as the price of independence from a hostile West. Rather than pushing Russians toward compromise, each fresh round of punitive measures can be interpreted domestically as confirmation that resistance is necessary and honourable.

That dynamic does not make sanctions useless; they strain public finances, slow technological development and complicate long-term planning. But as currently employed, sanctions often serve political theater more than strategic effect. They are experienced by many Russians as collective punishment from an outside enemy rather than as leverage that will induce change from within.

If Western policy wants better results, it needs a clearer diagnosis. Putin did not simply impose himself on a passive population; he met an existing sense of Russian difference halfway. Policy that assumes Russians are uniformly captives waiting to be freed misreads both public sentiment and what motivates state behavior. A more realistic approach would target levers that matter in Moscow’s calculations while recognising the social basis for many Kremlin policies.

This is not an argument for excusing Russia’s actions in Ukraine. It is an argument for precision: to be stern in judgment and effective in policy, the West must start from a truer picture of Russian society and politics. Waiting for a spontaneous uprising or for sanctions alone to topple the regime misunderstands how identities and state interests interact.

In short, the West’s mistake has been analytical, not merely moral. The vocabulary of outrage—dictator, fascist, totalitarian—captures Western feelings but not the full complexity of Russian reality. Adapting language and analysis to reflect that complexity would make Western policy firmer and more focused, not softer.

Sajid Farid Shapoo is a senior Indian security official and former three-star general with a PhD in security studies from Princeton. He writes on geopolitics and international security; the views presented here are his own.

In early June, Volodymyr Zelensky published an open letter proposing a face-to-face meeting with Vladimir Putin to end a war now in its fifth year. Putin’s response was blunt: talks were pointless unless Ukrainian forces withdrew from territory Russia occupies and Kyiv abandoned its NATO aspirations. The exchange was small amid far larger clashes, but revealing: five years of sanctions, isolation and moral condemnation have not produced the outcome Western capitals seek because they are arguing from an incomplete diagnosis of Russia.

Western commentary has for decades relied on a fixed vocabulary—words like authoritarian, fascist or totalitarian—that assumes the Russian state rests primarily on coercion and that ordinary Russians are a captive population waiting to be liberated. That framing is comforting because it simplifies cause and effect: remove the coercer and the system collapses. It also permits moral clarity without the harder work of explaining why tens of millions of Russians might, at least in part, accept the political bargain on offer.

This shortcut obscures a different reality. Beyond shifting regimes and borders there runs a more durable current of Russian identity—linguistic, religious, cultural—that would have persisted regardless of whether it was called Muscovy, the Romanov empire, the Soviet Union or the Russian Federation. Conflating every Russian assertion of interest beyond the 1991 borders with reflexive imperialism flattens that deeper sense of separateness and civilization.

Most Russians are unsentimental about their elites. Polling and daily life reflect a long-standing cynicism toward corruption, weak rule of law and self-dealing that predates Putin. At the same time, many still view Russia as distinct from Western Europe and the United States, not as a broken polity waiting for external repair but as a different civilization with its own trajectory. That sense of distinctness is what sanctions and condemnation too often fail to address.

Putin’s rule cannot be reduced to coercion alone. The regime has met society halfway, offering stability, a rebuilt military, and visible investments in select cities and sectors. Ordinary Russians weigh these tangible benefits—stability, pensions, public services—against failures: stagnant regional economies, demographic decline, technological dependencies exposed by sanctions, and an inequality that persists despite state showpieces. They can both mock and mistrust their governors and yet still feel that Russia’s separateness from the West is worth defending. Western hopes that exposing corruption or demonstrating hardship would automatically erode that patriotism have so far proved misplaced.

What Western observers also underappreciate is society’s hold over the state. Russians are unusually adept at reading and decoding official messaging—a skill honed under Soviet propaganda and refined in a partly marketized media environment. That capacity means manufactured obedience is thinner than many assume. This is visible in opinion numbers: Putin’s approval rose to wartime highs, then slipped as economic problems hit home. The drop in support in 2026 tracked not battlefield losses but kitchen-table economics: tax hikes, declines in private investment, and incomes that increasingly fail to cover essentials.

Diplomacy has repeatedly failed to end the war. Negotiations in places such as Istanbul, Anchorage, Abu Dhabi and Geneva have produced no lasting settlement. The central instrument of Western pressure—economic sanctions—has been counterproductive in an important sense: by treating Russia as a besieged civilization, sanctions have validated the narrative the Kremlin uses to explain hardship. Sanctions do impose costs on Russian public finances and industry, but those costs have often been assimilated into a story of resistance and resilience rather than creating mass pressure toward compromise. Each new punitive measure can sharpen public appetite for defiance instead of undermining support for the state.

That is not an argument to excuse Russia’s aggression. It is an argument for getting the diagnosis right. Western policy has too often been analytical rather than strategic: it confuses moral condemnation with leverage. Labels borrowed from twentieth-century totalitarianism tell the West more about its own outrage than about the social and political dynamics inside Russia. Putin did not simply capture a passive society; he struck a bargain with a population that found some of his promises—order, national pride, strategic independence—worth tolerating despite obvious failings.

If Western policymakers want different outcomes, they need different tools and a different frame. That means targeting pressure more precisely, recognising which elements of Russian policy are most susceptible to influence, and coupling coercive measures with policies that address the narrative of siege rather than feed it. It also means preparing to deal with a Russia whose identity and political trajectory will outlast any individual leader.

None of this softens the moral case against Russia’s actions in Ukraine. It does, however, insist that policy be built on a realistic account of Russian society and politics. Waiting for a captive people to rise up and be rescued has not worked. A better realism—neither naive nor vindictive—would begin by acknowledging why many Russians tolerate, rationalize or even support their government’s choices, and then design pressure and engagement that reflect those facts.

Sajid Farid Shapoo is a senior Indian security official (three-star general) with a PhD in security studies from Princeton University. He writes on geopolitics and international security; the views expressed here are his own.