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The west must be tough on Putin – but it may take a generation to bring Russia …

In a few days Russia’s last remotely independent radio station could be silenced. Ever since the country’s energy conglomerate Gazprom took a majority holding, Ekho Moskvy (Echo of Moscow) has battled against censorship. The station’s editor in chief, Alexei Venediktov, has long become accustomed to threats, but Friday’s meeting could mark the last for him. His station has already been given a final warning for airing a discussion about the fighting in Ukraine – information, said the regulator, that was “justifying war crimes”.

The fate of the station is symptomatic of a country where a clique of political, financial and security interests has trampled on anything in its way. The author of Russia’s misfortune is one man, Vladimir Putin. During the G20 meeting of the top industrial nations in Australia, the Russian president was subjected to a series of public and private criticisms from other world leaders. The question is not why they did it, but why it has taken them so long?

Western policy is driven by a combination of economic self-interest and increasing timidity. The EU mishandled much of the early strategy on Ukraine, sending mixed messages to Kyiv and Moscow. Since the shooting down of the Malaysian airliner, the approach has become more consistent. Putin had assumed that the west, and particularly Germany and France (disproportionately dependent on trade with Russia) would buckle. And with the eurozone economies in an increasingly parlous state, Putin still assumes that Angela Merkel and François Hollande will resist, and ultimately remove, the sanctions that are causing growing damage.

To anyone who appreciates the beauty of Russia, the power of its creativity and the potential it has to offer, the events of the past year, indeed past several years, have been dispiriting. In the 1990s Russia had the opportunity to open up, to become integrated into the international community. The goodwill on both sides was intoxicating.

For sure, mistakes were made. I remember the arrogance of western advisers who parked themselves in the economics and finance ministries, acting as neoliberal ventriloquists, oblivious to the damage they were causing.

During the 1996 presidential elections, western governments turned a blind eye to the media manipulations that allowed a drunken Boris Yeltsin to win re-election. And as the first wave of oligarchs enriched themselves, European banks welcomed them in, to launder much of the wealth they had stolen from their own country.

By 1999 those same oligarchs put out a job search for a new president who would do their bidding. They thought that in Putin they had found their man. But within months of taking office Putin changed the rules of engagement. Summoning the billionaires to the Kremlin, he told them he would leave them alone to make their money as long as they kept out of politics, and looked after the financial interests of the political elite.

Those who disobeyed were punished: Vladimir Gusinsky, who owned the robustly independent NTV television channel, was forced out of the country; Boris Berezovsky fled to the UK; Mikhail Khodorkovsky was sent to a labour camp for harbouring presidential ambitions.

Surrounded by men whose fortunes and indeed possible survival depend on his political longevity, Putin has set himself on a course that is fuelled by suspicion of the west. His version of capitalist authoritarianism is based on the Singaporean and Chinese models, with an added dose of Orthodox-church intolerance of “liberal” lifestyles, such as homosexuality. But the Chinese leadership achieves its broader geostrategic ends by the use of greater diplomatic dexterity.

So could it have been any other way? A KGB officer in the former East Germany, Putin is imbued with Soviet-era thinking. He proclaimed that the demise of the USSR was one of the great geostrategic tragedies of the 20th century, and rehabilitated Stalin in school textbooks.

There was a brief window, however. In his first few years in power, even as he began the clampdown on domestic criticism, Putin made overtures to the west. I was witness to one of the moments when his policy was turning. In late 2004, during the Beslan school hostage tragedy, he summoned a group of international writers and experts to his official residence on the outskirts of Moscow. There, for four hours until well after midnight, he vented his indignation at the hypocrisy of western foreign policy.

He had stood by as the Americans used central Asian bases for the war in Afghanistan, he said; he had caused few problems even though he disagreed with the Iraq invasion. And what had he received in return? The orange and rose revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia, alongside the eastern advancement of Nato and the European Union.

He could subsequently have added western mishandling of Syria, and he would have been justified in each of his laments. Yet instead of engaging as an equal partner in international forums, agreeing where he could, disagreeing where he couldn’t, Putin has defined his relationships through antagonism.

On one level, he is probably content with his approach. Aided by a state media machine that has resurrected Soviet-style propaganda and added slick modern production values, he enjoys high popularity ratings. Nothing beats an easily identifiable adversary to bind your country together when all else fails.

The wealthy, meanwhile, eat their sushi in swanky Moscow restaurants and holiday in Courchevel, knowing that, as long as they keep their heads down, they’ll remain untouched. Most took their fortunes offshore long ago, and many have taken their families out of the country.

There is nothing romantic about Putin’s Russia. There is nothing to defend in its politics. It is possible Putin will outlast all his western counterparts: he will remake the constitution to meet his needs. It’s also possible that he realises he has chosen a path that is only harming Russia’s economy and national interest, and will try to build bridges again. But given his mindset and recent actions, this remains unlikely.

For the moment, he is a problem that requires careful managing. The west should be tough in its actions, increasing sanctions in the event of further Russian military involvement in Ukraine, while avoiding inflammatory rhetoric. But we also have to accept that there may be no quick solution: it could take another generation for Russia’s leaders to embrace rather than resent the outside world, and to win back the respect their country deserves.