Putin is a dictator and a tyrant, but other forces sustain him – and the west needs to understand them | Simon Jenkins

I would report on the excluded populists – the Johnsons, Andersons, Farages and Galloways – waiting in the wings to pounce, while Rishi Sunak twists and turns frantically to avoid an election.

Not just Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and Syria, but states across Asia and Africa are regularly castigated as tyrannical, terrorist or genocidal.

More than a third of the world’s under-35s would today support some sort of “military rule”, by a “strong leader” who did not hold elections or consult a parliament.

When I asked a Russia expert what he thought would be the true tally of electoral support for Putin’s dictatorship, his view squared with this survey.

Nato’s escalation of its logistical aid to Ukraine into an all-out economic war on the Russian people enabled Putin to construct an anti-west coalition.

As the historian of modern Russia Mark Galeotti points out, Putin’s defiance of his western critics has entrenched his “ shabby police state ”, possibly for his lifetime.