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Ian Bond, from the Centre for European Reform, says the West needs to stop being - and sounding - afraid of a nuclear attack."Nothing is as provocative to Putin as weakness, so the more the West says 'We are afraid that Russia might use nuclear weapons', the more likely that Putin is to continue making the threat of using nuclear weapons - and perhaps even use one or two to demonstrate he really means it."

Centre for European Reform Director, Charles Grant said one of the measures of success will be "does it persuade Serbia, Azerbaijan and Turkey to lean a bit more to the West and less towards Russia".

“Mais cela semble être davantage un échec de planification technique et managériale, par opposition à un échec politique”, comme en Allemagne, a déclaré Elisabetta Cornago, chercheuse basée à Bruxelles au Centre for European Reform.

Foreign policy expert Ian Bond, from the Centre for European Reform think-tank, says the West needs to stop being - and sounding - afraid.This is what he told the Doomsday Watch podcast:"Nothing is as provocative to Putin as weakness, so the more the West says 'we are afraid that Russia might use nuclear weapons', the more likely it Putin is to continue making the threat of using nuclear weapons - and perhaps even use one or two to demonstrate he really means it."

The British prime minister can now claim to have secured an influential role, removing the risk of Brits being treated as “second-class citizens” opposed to the EU bloc, said Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform think-tank.

“The parties in the current government are looking well placed,” said Ian Bond, a former UK ambassador to Riga and director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform. “They aren’t being punished for the economic problems because Russia has been blamed for it.”