'Russia must be isolated. Utterly walled off,’ said the Russian. ‘When Putin falls, the new regime will be the same as the old’

At an Estonian literary festival in June a discussion about Russia was held between a journalist, a Russian exile and an Estonian politician. I learnt this in the British magazine Country Life, of all places, while sitting in a café in Lviv googlng the Estonian liqueur I was drinking.

"‘Russia,’ the Russian said, ‘must be isolated. Utterly walled off. Let the world forget Russia.’ There was no murmur of protest, so he continued: ‘The state must be declared rogue, a terrorist organisation. You don’t deal with it. Because when Putin falls, and he will, the new regime will be the same as the old one, with another figurehead.’


"Russia missed its chance to change in the 1990s and what the Estonian MP called the ‘Chekist state’ would rule Russia forever; the people are too miserable, poor and ill-educated to protest."