Putin's Russia doesn't exist anymore. The people over there want to run that guy out and fast. Just look at the last election they had. Worrying about what the Kremlin wants shouldn't concern anyone. They have problems of their own, especially good ol' Pooty Poot.
Problem is, the whole top of the Russian Government is ex-KGB mouthbreathers now. (By the way, the Sovs always took care to prevent senior KGB rankers from reaching the top of the Politburo, going so far as to murder Lavrenti Beria while Stalin was still cooling in his coffin. They failed, when Yuri Andropov reached the General Secretary's chair.)
They could hive off Putin into a cushy retirement as an emeritus member of "the club" and bring on some other guy nobody's ever heard of, and it'd be same old b.s. different day after that.
Putin would make a great Bond villian. That being said, let’s have the EU take care of this one. We don’t need to fight any more wars for the house of Saud.