Clear signs of a deliberate shift in policy from the Kremlin have appeared over the past six months. Since May, counter-terrorism police have been investigating fires at properties linked to the Prime Minister. In Essex last month three people were arrested on suspicion of spying for Russia. We have seen Russia deliberately fly drones above Polish territory and fighter jets into Estonian airspace.

Individually these incidents are serious enough but collectively they indicate, to me, a determined and targeted escalation by the Kremlin. Putin, no doubt emboldened by Trump’s ever-changing hollow rhetoric, wants to warn the West to back off so that he can finish the job he started in Ukraine. This is a sign of things to come and it is what happens when the President of the Russian Federation believes he has nothing to lose.

Meanwhile under the chandeliers at the UK Foreign Office the usual bed-wetting mandarins are holding back our support for Ukraine. Already this year they have blocked defence exports to Kyiv and operations that could have helped our Allies. Our Ambassador to Ukraine, until he stepped down today, has been missing in action. He was one of the very people who opposed my arming of Ukraine and didn’t believe Putin would ever invade.

Russia senses this limp attitude. And for a bully like Putin this supports his view that the West doesn’t really mean it and will flake away eventually.

Fortunately the UK Foreign Office is not the only player in this game. The Minister for Foreign Affairs of Poland, Radek Sikorski, recently took himself to the UN and made the Polish position absolutely clear.

“If another missile or aircraft enters our airspace without permission, deliberately or by mistake, and gets shot down and the wreckage falls on Nato territory, please don’t come here to whine about it,” he said. “You have been warned.”

Sikorski understands the art of deterrence. It wasn’t just the message that mattered but by delivering it at the UN, in front of the nations of the world, he was preventing Russian attempts to play the victim (which Putin loves to do) should Poland legitimately defend its airspace. The Polish minister was concise, clear and determined.

The time has come to drive it home to Putin that he does have something to lose. The problem has been that all along the West has been failing to read him properly. Putin is a sad little bully who lives in a world of fantasy and romantic Tsarist bilge.

The clues have always been there. The horseback hunting trips stripped to the waist in Siberia. The over-the-top palace on the Black Sea. The child-like essays on Russian destiny written by his own hand, warping history to fit his narrative.

If you understand the man you will find the solution to this war. If you take the time to read one of Putin’s error-riddled speeches and essays, you will be able to understand what makes him tick. It is clear that it’s Putin’s ego and fantasies that have taken Russia to where it is now.

At the heart of the dictator’s beliefs is an obsession with Crimea, Putin’s jewel in the long-lost Russian imperial crown. As he said in 2014:

“Crimea, the ancient Korsun or Chersonesus, and Sevastopol have invaluable civilisational and even sacral importance for Russia, like the Temple Mount in Jerusalem for the followers of Islam and Judaism… this is how we will always consider it.”

As long as Crimea is safe then Putin is safe. He can keep his meat grinder working on the front line from Luhansk to Kherson. So we must place Crimea in jeopardy. Ukraine should focus, almost entirely, on making Crimea uninhabitable and unviable from a Russian point of view. Ukraine does not need to invade the peninsula (which I concede would be incredibly difficult if not impossible) but they should choke it to death. The Russian navy has already been driven out of Sevastopol. Crimean water and power supplies must be destroyed. The Kerch bridges must finally be brought down, so that supplies must run the gauntlet of Ukrainian fire along the land bridge north of the Azov. Ukraine must rain down drones on Crimea on a daily basis.

Crimea must be the focus. If necessary, risks should be taken elsewhere. We in the UK should help supply the drones – both sea and air. The German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said that the potentially bridge-busting Taurus missile should be sent to Ukraine when he was in opposition. He should send it now.

If there was ever a technology suited to this way of warfare it is drones (cruise missiles like the Taurus and Storm Shadow are essentially faster, better drones). For now, the West and Ukraine have the edge in this area and this is a fight that can be won.

All this is easier said than done, I am sure, but a siege of Crimea will present Putin with a strategic dilemma. It may ultimately bring him to realise that peace is in his interest as well as ours.