Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brutal, lawless invasion of Ukraine is the consequence of the former KGB head’s messianic vision and numerous Western miscalculations over the past two decades. President George W. Bush looked into Putin’s soul and mistakenly found him “very straightforward and trustworthy.” President Barack Obama saw a time to reset the U.S.-Russia relationship. President Donald Trump not only refused to criticize Putin but openly expressed admiration for him, while questioning NATO’s reasons for being and undermining American intelligence efforts.
Western Europe’s energy dependence on Russia and a series of high-level misreadings preceded the waves of Russian troops now trampling Ukrainian sovereignty. Whatever had masqueraded as a cold peace since the fall of the Soviet Union is now a new Cold War. Nor can there be doubt about who Putin is — a smart and ruthless tactician with ambitions to reconstitute the failed Soviet Union.
In an address just days prior to the invasion, the former spymaster spun a twisted narrative of disinformation to air old, new and fabricated grievances. In a fairy tale of hard-line Russian nationalism, paranoia and distorted history, Putin asserted that Ukraine should be part of a Russian-controlled republic to justify military action. Notably absent from Putin’s narrative was the popular will of Ukrainians. They desire to tilt away from Russia and toward the promise of closer economic ties to Western European economies, a choice that a despotic Putin despises.
