Washington and the West struggle for a way forward with Putin’s Russia

Moments after he greeted Americans newly released from Russian prisons last month, President Joe Biden was asked if he had any message for Vladimir Putin. "Stop," he replied.

But whether Biden meant jailing innocent foreigners, persecuting Russian dissidents, invading Ukraine, violating international law or challenging the U.S.-led global order, Putin has shown no sign of backing down.

And that means one of the most deeply vexing questions facing Western leaders — including Biden and whoever succeeds him next year — is what to do about it.

On each side of the Atlantic, there is uncertainty about how to counter Putin's aggression without stoking a direct conflict with the man who controls the world's largest nuclear arsenal.

That fear — and the inability, even of Western diplomats with decades of experience dealing with the Kremlin, to see a viable path forward — has revived calls for Cold War-style containment: restricting contacts with Moscow to essential issues and bracing for conflict by boosting Europe and Ukraine's military capacity.

Skip to end of carousel About this series" Russia, Remastered " examines how Vladimir Putin, stoking conflict with the West and risking a new world war, is harnessing his invasion of Ukraine to transform Russia and fulfill his revanchist vision of a restored superpower. End of carousel Current U.S. policy is "more of a reaction and an outgrowth to events," said Fiona Hill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who has advised multiple administrations on Russia policy and was President Donald Trump's top Russia adviser at the National Security Council. "We haven't had a holistic approach," Hill said.

As Putin builds a militarized Russian society geared to confront the West for decades — revamping the education system , monopolizing culture , reshaping women's roles and indoctrinating youth — he regularly boasts of a victory in Ukraine that would signal the defeat of American global power.

But Washington, while arming and financing Ukraine, has yet to define a longer-term strategy to deal with a resurgent Russia, which, for more than 20 years, a succession of presidents hoped to befriend or to write off as irrelevant.

In interviews, foreign policymakers and diplomats — including leaders and former leaders, current and former U.S. officials — as well as analysts and exiled Russian politicians warned that the West has consistently underestimated and misplayed Putin, and is at risk of misreading him again, potentially responding too timidly because of his repeated threats of escalation.

Some warned that the West must be prepared for a direct military confrontation.

"The level of risk, the level of uncertainty is extremely high," said former Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski, who met with Putin at length and witnessed what he said was his "imperialistic" obsession with re-creating Russia as a great power.

Skip to end of carousel How we reportedFor this , Moscow bureau chief Robyn Dixon reported from Moscow, Tallinn, Estonia and Riga, Latvia. National security correspondent Michael Birnbaum reported from Washington and Riga. They interviewed European leaders and former leaders, American and European diplomats and former diplomats, Russian former officials and opposition figures, as well as analysts and experts on Russian foreign relations from around the world.Reporting inside Russia is challenging, and it has grown more difficult since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Journalists' movements are often tracked, especially outside of Moscow. Some journalists have been stripped of accreditation, while others have been arrested and charged with serious crimes, including espionage.Robyn Dixon, The Post's Moscow bureau chief since November 2019, is on her third stint covering Russia, having had previous assignments with the Los Angeles Times and the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age dating back to 1993. She speaks Russian, French and English.Michael Birnbaum is a national security reporter for The Washington Post, covering diplomacy, and has been The Post's bureau chief in Brussels, Moscow and Berlin. He has reported for The Post from more than 60 countries. Birnbaum has a degree in German history from Yale University and has studied Russian, French, German and Latvian.Francesa Ebel, a Russia correspondent for The Post since November 2022, previously covered Russia and Ukraine as a multimedia journalist for the Associated Press and was an AP correspondent based in Tunis. She has a bachelor's degree in medieval and modern languages from Cambridge University, where she studied Russian, Ukrainian and French.Mary Ilyushina, a Post reporter covering Russia since 2021, previously worked for CNN's Moscow bureau as a field producer. She speaks Russian, English, Ukrainian and Arabic and is a graduate of Moscow State University.Natalia Abbakumova has been a researcher and translator in The Post's Moscow bureau since 2001, collaborating during that time with 10 bureau chiefs. Previously, she worked briefly for the Economist. She holds a degree in foreign languages (English and German) from Moscow Linguistic University. 1 / 4

End of carousel "It means that we are closer to a war," Kwasniewski said. "I hope not. But we are in a world which is much more risky, much more unpredictable, much more complicated."

Even as Putin faces Western efforts to isolate him, he seems increasingly invincible at home. Putin's most formidable challenger, Alexei Navalny, died in prison in February. Any sign of political dissent is quickly crushed. What is left of the Russian opposition is now largely in exile. And even embarrassing military setbacks, such as Ukraine's recent incursion into Russia's Kursk region, have not weakened Putin's grip on power.

Some officials and analysts say containment is a wrongheaded approach that increases the risk of global conflict. Some politicians in the United States and Europe, such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, say the West should respect Moscow's view of Ukraine as part of its core security interests and push for an immediate cease-fire. Still others say the West should end Ukraine's hope of joining NATO, persuade Kyiv to surrender territory and potentially offer Russia sanctions relief.

But even those who have long advocated engagement with the Kremlin to end the Ukraine war, say a long period of hostility — a new cold war — is inevitable, and argue against giving way to Moscow's demands.

"There are no good choices here — it's just degrees of bad going forward," said Samuel Charap, a senior political scientist at Rand, adding that "accepting Russian conditions that are unacceptable" would be a mistake. Instead, he urged "a combination of deterrence and potential negotiations."

Putin's objective of weakening the United States by aggressive global measures across "the military-political, economic and trade and informational psychological spheres," and an "offensive information campaign," was spelled out in a secret Russian foreign policy document reported by The Washington Post in April.

The war in Ukraine crystallized the Russian threat, but some leaders say many governments still do not fully appreciate the sweep of the challenge posed by the Kremlin, not just militarily but also to the Western values of freedom and democracy.

"The biggest danger that we have is not military might or the economy," Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics said in an interview. "This penetration that those regimes are still good at, and addressing the core values of our societies, that's where our strategy is not very well thought out and successful."

As Russian missiles continue to rain down on Ukrainian cities, Washington is largely distracted by the U.S. presidential race — the latest example of how Putin outlasts his Western counterparts who must run for reelection and face term limits.

Senior Biden administration officials say their goals are clear: deny Russia resources for its war, prevent a direct conflict, and push Russia to be a responsible international actor. And they insist their policy is working, if slowly.

"You have clear goals, and you build a coalition to achieve the goals, and then at some point you do need to articulate those a bit more," said a senior State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to frankly discuss internal diplomatic assessments. "But that typically takes a period of a few years, as it did, I would say, between late '45 and '48, when you started to see things like the Truman Doctrine be articulated. ... We're hitting that period now."

Most Western politicians say Russia cannot be allowed to win in Ukraine, and the 2022 U.S. National Defense Strategy identifies Russia as an "acute threat," including as a nuclear power. A few politicians, however, including the Republican vice-presidential nominee, Sen. JD Vance (Ohio), have opposed U.S. aid for Ukraine, saying it is not in America's interests.

Kurt Volker, who was the U.S. ambassador to NATO when Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, contends that Putin and other autocrats — China's Xi Jinping, Iran's leaders and North Korea's Kim Jong Un — perceive America to be stumbling, and see an opportunity to reject democracy and promote autocracy.

"The way we respond to one informs the others. Are we serious? Do we have resolve? Are we not serious? And I think that they have all concluded that the West is now weak and divided and it's a good time to go on the offensive," Volker said. "So they're doing that, and they're cooperating with each other."

The Biden administration, Volker contends, afraid of triggering a nuclear attack or widening the war, failed to help Ukraine to defeat Russia.

"We have to give Ukraine everything we can as quickly as we can so they can defeat Russian forces," he said. He has advocated allowing Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory with Western weapons, providing Kyiv with better air defenses and embedding Western experts with Ukrainian forces. "We need to actually help them win the war."

Other critics have also pointed to the slow rollout of advanced weapons and the curbs on their use, as well as continued Western imports of Russian energy and the failure to prevent vital components from flowing to Russia's weapons industry.

Putin has repeatedly sought to amplify Western fears. He recently spelled out plans to revise Russia's nuclear doctrine, which currently states that Russia would use nuclear weapons only in retaliation against a nuclear attack, or if its existence were threatened.

Meanwhile, he allegedly continues to order or sponsor a variety of attacks on the West, including brazen sabotage operations , assassinations, election interference and disinformation — highlighting the seriousness of the Russian threat, said Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a former deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council who is now director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security.

"In many ways he's pushing forward even while the war in Ukraine continues, certainly with this really sizable uptick in Russia's nonconventional and hybrid tactics in Europe," Kendall-Taylor said in an interview.

"That's just another approach to destabilizing NATO and the E.U., short of conventional force," she said, adding: "And I do I think that is what Putin is trying to accomplish. He is really intent on undermining NATO and the E.U., and he is going to use any tool or any tactic that he can to advance that objective."

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former head of Yukos Oil and onetime oligarch who is now a leading Russian opposition figure living in London, said the West's biggest error was failing to defeat Russia in the first six months of the Ukraine war.

"They have been feeding the cannibal with flesh for the past two years, and now we have a huge monster as a result," said Khodorkovsky, who was jailed for 10 years in Russia beginning in 2003 after he openly challenged the Kremlin by financing pro-democracy groups.

"The West is going to lose, not because it is fundamentally weak, but because there are no real leaders in the West," he added. "You have to be bold, decisive. You have to tell your populations, 'Look, we're living through the Cold War, which could quickly descend into the Third World War.'"

Even a partial Ukrainian capitulation, analysts said, would deliver a seismic boost to Putin's global power, sending a message to dictators such as China's Xi that invasions pay off, and emboldening Putin to further confront NATO, perhaps challenging its collective defense doctrine.

Evgenia Kara-Murza, an opposition activist whose husband, dissident and Washington Post Opinions contributor Vladimir Kara-Murza, was released in the recent prisoner swap, described Putin as a "bully" who will attack more countries "if he is allowed to present himself as victor in the war."

"He is building a dictatorship," Kara-Murza said. "An ideology has to be introduced in order to make those very young Russians into good Russian soldiers who can one day go and invade yet another territory of yet another independent state."

She urged the West to support the Russian opposition, which she said must "de-zombify the population that has been brainwashed."

Kwasniewski, the former Polish president, noted that there is also an ideological component to the fight, given Putin's claim to be a savior of traditional conservative values against what he calls the degenerate West. "He believes very much in his role as the protector of these traditional conservative values," Kwasniewski said.

By some analyses, decades-long American policy aimed at engaging and reforming Russia has failed — beginning with the undue optimism of the 1990s about Russia's path to becoming a Western-leaning capitalist democracy. There were missteps and failed resets, even as Putin invaded Georgia in 2008, annexed Crimea and deployed covert forces into eastern Ukraine in 2014, and interfered in U.S. elections in 2016.

Trump trusted Putin's denials of interference more than evidence from U.S. intelligence agencies. When Biden took office in 2021, he and his top aides devised a strategy to manage the Russian relationship with an aim they repeated often: " stable and predictable ."

The goal was to pursue cooperation on global issues where interests aligned. Biden met Putin in Geneva in June 2021, but within four months, Russian troops were mustering on Ukraine's border.

"Once we saw the massive Ukraine invasion plan, we knew definitively that Putin wasn't buying 'stable and predictable,'" Victoria Nuland, who was the third-ranking official at the State Department, said in an interview.

"We tried to talk to prevent the war, but Putin gave his team no room for real negotiation," said Nuland, who retired in March. "So then for us it was all about the hardest possible containment, deterrence, rollback and pain we could amass."

Since then, the Biden administration has provided military and economic support to Ukraine, helping to deny Russia a quick victory. But the aid has often been criticized as too little and too late, leaving Kyiv's forces perilously close to defeat.

Meanwhile, Western sanctions and export controls intended to cripple Russia's economy and military production have not done so and Putin's war continues.

Today's conflicts echo what George Kennan, an American diplomat in Moscow, observed on the eve of the Cold War. In a February 1946 cable known as "The Long Telegram," he wrote that Soviet leaders viewed the West as "evil, hostile and menacing," and aimed to weaken and divide it. In the cable, he coined the concept of containment.

Many are again calling for such an approach, convinced that no amount of Western pressure or diplomacy will alter Russia's course.

Some officials and former policymakers argue that the Biden administration should do more to anticipate Putin's larger goals and seek to contain Russia so it is a less dangerous global player.

"There's very little left for us to do but to try to make those choices as painful for him as possible," said Nuland, who has had leading roles on Russia policy in Republican and Democratic administrations. Eventually Russian citizens, elites or the military might "tell him it isn't worth it anymore," she said.

Like Kennan, proponents of a new containment believe the West today has few levers to influence the Kremlin. They call for broadening contacts with Moscow on issues such as arms control while increasing Western military production and Europe's capacity to defend itself, boosting aid to Ukraine and offering the country a place in the European Union. Some also want to give training and weapons to vulnerable nations, including Georgia and Moldova.

Containment advocates also call for toughening Western defenses against Russian provocations. Other measures could include tougher enforcement of sanctions, deterring exports used in Russian military production, and reducing oil prices to squeeze Russia's economy.

Some also call for moves to lure Russian oligarchs away from Putin's side by offering them deals, and to support the exiled Russian opposition's efforts to build a new future for its country.

Hill, the former White House adviser on Russia, has said the outcome of the war in Ukraine will define the future of European security and, by extension, the entire world order. And in an interview, she said the West has failed to keep pace not just with Putin's war in Ukraine but also with his aggression worldwide.

"Russia's infiltration and influence and propaganda exercises are everywhere," she said. "The Chinese parrot Russian talking points. People do in Africa and in Latin and South America. Russia is trying to be a global player, sometimes on the cheap and sometimes with a lot of resources pushed on it, and we're just not keeping track of all of that."

Because Russia is a long-term threat, Hill said, the structures to address that threat must also be long-term or Putin will always claim the advantage. She urged a more consistent response, spanning administrations — creating "a kind of permanent secretariat" with allies to maintain a consistent Russia policy.

Trump, meanwhile, has stirred uncertainty. He has boasted that his rapport with Putin, Xi and Kim would allow him to swiftly sort the world out on American terms. But the deepening ties between Moscow, Beijing and other adversaries complicate the picture.

"To get a coherent Russia strategy, one needs also to figure out how to build a China strategy," said Rinkevics, the Latvian president. "Those are going to be very interlinked in coming years."

About this story