To put it another way, Mr Putin's meetings with European leaders are rather like a polite north London dinner party where a drunken yob has turned up, grabbing everyone else's food, guzzling all the booze, and challenging anyone who objects to his behaviour to a fight. His fellow guests may be appalled, and may well say so to his face. But none of them are likely to take up his offer to step outside. That's not the way people do things in civilised Europe any more. And Mr Putin knows it.