Vladimir Putin’s regime describes itself by its grudges. The Russian president harbours a lengthy list of grievances and imagined slights, reaching from the collapse of the Soviet Union to the expansion of the EU and Nato, to US military interventions in the Middle East. The most personally wounding, though, comprised a few words uttered a couple of years ago by US President Barack Obama.

Mr Putin craves respect. Russia, Mr Obama said, was no more than a “regional power” whose revanchist military intervention in Ukraine was evidence of weakness rather than a demonstration of prowess. Russian actions were “a problem”, but not the biggest threat to America’s national security. You could hear the screams of anguish in the Kremlin.

The assessment was at once right and wrong. By almost every metric — economic, demographic, social or technological — Russia faces inexorable decline. The US president, though, underestimated Moscow’s willingness to use its still formidable military. Mr Putin is a leader ready to take risks at a time when the west prizes caution above all else. Mr Obama missed, too, the link between adventurism and hurt national pride. If Mr Putin wants anything on the global stage, it is to be treated as the leader of a power that can sit down as an equal with the US and China.