The biggest mistake we can make in dealing with Vladimir Putin is to believe that he thinks the way we do.

Seen from outside, Russia is in a dire state and the Russian president is to blame. He has failed to diversify the economy away from natural resources, to modernise the state, or to integrate the country into the outside world. He launched a costly and unsuccessful war in Ukraine, which has turned Russia’s biggest friendly neighbour into a wounded and resentful foe. Now he is starting a new military adventure in Syria, sending east-west relations into the deep freeze and attracting the ire of Sunni Muslims across the world.

His personal reputation for truthfulness and even sanity is in shreds. Angela Merkel, the German leader, says he inhabits another world. His diplomatic isolation at international gatherings is palpable. Even Russians privately roll their eyes at the personality cult stoked by the fawning official media.  Meanwhile the European Union has brought a snarling Gazprom to heel, sanctions are biting, the low oil price is taking its toll, and NATO is mustering a decisive military response to the Kremlin’s sabre-rattling towards the frontline states.

In short, time is on our side. Sooner or later he will be toppled or be forced to change course. Russia will then become a country we can do business with. We need strategic patience and a dose of containment, but there is no need to panic. If he does anything really bad we will cut him off from the SWIFT international financial-transactions system, bringing Russia’s economy to a grinding halt.

All this is true, but the real picture is different. Mr Putin does not judge himself by Western standards, but by those of his alma mater, the KGB. The only rule is to exercise power by finding other people’s weaknesses and exploiting them.  Setbacks can be blamed on someone else, endured or simply ignored. Reality is something you create in other people’s minds with fear and lies.

His first target is always Russian public opinion. The soap opera in Ukraine is over, at least for the current season. The heroic separatists, their evil fascist foes, and the cynical Western meddlers have been retired. The new entertainment is a thrilling and exotic epic set in Syria, with the Assad regime as the heroic defenders of civilised values, Russian their valiant allies, and the West as the defenders of jihadist barbarians. The most important thing is to reduce the conflict to a binary choice between the regime and ISIS, in which the West will inevitably be forced to side with Russia.

His second target is the West. He does not want to destroy it (his money is there). Nor can he afford a full-scale confrontation. But he can divide us, influence us and outmanoeuvre us. He sees the fault-lines—between countries and inside them—more clearly than we do. We assume our political, economic and security systems are fundamentally resilient and that despite problems we will muddle through as we always do. He thinks the era of Western ascendency is over; time is on his side.

Some moves by the West would give him real problems: the widespread withdrawal of visas from the Russian elite, and their spouses, siblings, parents and offspring, for example. Asset freezes and money-laundering investigations would hurt even more, especially if the bankers, lawyers and accountants concerned could be induced to switch sides and explain how and where the money is hidden.

But he knows the West will not do this. He thinks we are ruled by greed, not principle. Perhaps he is right.