In the 1930s, as the international order began to unravel and authoritarianism swept across Europe, democratic leaders faltered. Faced with growing evidence of aggression from Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy, they chose caution over confrontation.

The doctrine of appeasement, rooted in fear of another great war and a belief that revisionist powers could be satisfied through concessions, proved fatally misguided. By the time Europe awoke to the true nature of the threat, it was already engulfed in flames. That bitter experience left a powerful legacy. Allowing expansionist regimes to operate unchecked does not bring peace. It invites catastrophe.

Nearly a century later, Europe confronts a similar moment of strategic reckoning.

The regime of Vladimir Putin, far from being a predictable actor that seeks only to protect its borders, has shown itself to be profoundly revisionist. It has redrawn international boundaries through force, sought to disrupt Western politics, weaponised everything from energy to information and undertaken a sabotage campaign throughout Europe.

For too long, Western policy has sought to contain the Kremlin, hoping that deterrence at NATO’s borders and economic sanctions would suffice. But recent history shows that containment alone is no guarantee of safety. As Europe discovered in the last century, it is not enough to build walls around a threat. Eventually, the source of the danger must be confronted directly.

That danger lies not in Russia as a state, but in the specific characteristics of Putin’s regime. Built on repression, kleptocracy, and imperial nostalgia, the Kremlin under Putin has constructed a political order that is inseparable from external aggression. Its legitimacy rests in part on the myth of Russia’s global resurgence and that Russia as a global power has a sphere-of-influence and a right to dictate international affairs with other great powers like China and the US. This myth requires the West as an enemy and Ukraine as a conquest.

Within Russia, dissent is crushed, the media is controlled, and the judiciary is an instrument of the state. Abroad, Moscow engages in hybrid warfare, cyberattacks, electoral interference, and the deliberate sowing of discord in European societies. Russian society is increasingly militarised, and its economy is bent towards war. It is not simply that the regime poses a threat. Rather, it thrives on threatening others.

This is not the behaviour of a status-quo power that can be deterred or accommodated. It is the logic of an autocracy that sees its survival as contingent on permanent confrontation. Therein lies the heart of the strategic dilemma. If the Kremlin’s survival is rooted in conflict, then Western attempts to avoid escalation through restraint are interpreted not as prudence, but as weakness. Every concession is taken as encouragement, every pause as a moment to regroup and rearm. The invasion of Georgia in 2008, the annexation of Crimea and the Donbas war in 2014, and the full-scale war of Ukraine in 2022 all followed the same logic. That is to probe, assess the Western response, and act with impunity if the costs seem manageable. Each time, the Kremlin draws the lesson that the West is divided, hesitant, and unwilling to pay the price of resistance.

Yet the price of inaction is always higher in the long run. Just as the failure to confront fascism in its early stages led to a far more devastating war, so, too, could the failure to deal with Putin’s Russia result in a wider, more destructive conflict.

Already, Russian sabotage teams operate across European cities, its hackers target critical infrastructure, and its intelligence services fund political actors aimed at weakening democratic cohesion. This is not a future threat, it is present reality. If Ukraine is eventually forced into a settlement that leaves large swathes of its territory under Russian control, the precedent will send a message not only to Moscow, but to autocracies everywhere, that force works and that the West lacks the will to defend the principles it proclaims.

The current approach – anchored in containment and deterrence – has imposed real costs on Russia, but it has not shifted the Kremlin’s fundamental trajectory. Sanctions, while important, have not broken the regime’s resilience, partly because they were always designed to constrain, not to coerce. Military support to Ukraine has helped hold the line, but it has not changed the balance of initiative. What is needed now is a strategic shift. Rather than defend against Russian aggression, it is necessary to undermine the very system that enables it.

This is not to argue for military intervention in Russia or reckless escalation. The destabilisation of the Kremlin need not – and should not – take the form of direct confrontation. It must involve instead a deliberate, coordinated effort to erode the foundations of Putin’s power. That means supporting opposition figures and civil society within Russia, not merely as a moral gesture, but as a strategic imperative. It means amplifying the voices of those who reject the Kremlin’s war narrative and giving them the tools to survive and communicate. It means exposing the corruption and brutality that sustain the regime, both to the Russian public and to the global audience.

Europe must increase its economic pressure, not merely through broader sanctions, but through smarter and more aggressive enforcement. Loopholes must be closed, enablers punished, and the shadow networks that sustain the Russian economy disrupted. The assets of Russian elites should be not only frozen but repurposed and used to support Ukraine’s recovery and demonstrate that the costs of loyalty to Putin are permanent and personal.

Beyond that, Europe must do more to attract Russian talent, offering pathways out for those willing to defect from the system. Every scientist, entrepreneur, or bureaucrat who leaves is one less cog in the Kremlin’s machine.

A bolder strategy requires turning the tools of hybrid warfare back against the Kremlin. Just as Russia has meddled in our political systems, so, too, must we contest the information space within Russia. This is not about propaganda but about truth – ensuring that Russians can access unfiltered information about the war, the Kremlin, and the alternatives. The West has long been too cautious in this regard, fearful of provoking further repression. But repression is already the default in Putin’s Russia. Silence only enables it.

At the same time, Europe must prepare for a future in which the transatlantic alliance may be less reliable. With the US drifting towards abandonment of European security, European capitals can no longer outsource defence. Thus, the task of dealing with Russia falls increasingly on Europe’s own shoulders. That is not merely a burden, it is an opportunity. For the first time in decades, Europe can shape a security architecture grounded not in deference to Washington, but in its own strategic interests and historical memory, which tells us that peace is not preserved by hoping for the best, but by preparing for the worst.

To destabilise the Putin regime is not to pursue chaos, but to pursue clarity. It is to recognise that the only path to a stable Europe is through the weakening of the system – and to show strength – that has brought war back to the continent.

A Russia without Putin does not guarantee peace. But a Russia with Putin guarantees continued danger. Just as past generations understood that fascism must be defeated, and not merely contained, so, too, must we recognise that autocracy – when armed and unrepentant – must be resisted at its source.

Europe has spent too long fearing the consequences of Russian instability. It is time to fear the consequences of Russian stability under Putin. The hour is late, but not yet lost. To secure the future, we must have the courage to unmake the past.