The recent assertion by Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s security council (and former president), that the invasion of Ukraine will “achieve all its goals” and that peace will be “on our terms” raises an obvious question: what are those terms?
History suggests the answer may be a hard one. Modern Russian wars have followed a pattern – victory is either total (Chechnya or Syria) or it involves the dismemberment of the other country (Georgia or Ukraine after the first Russian intervention in 2014).
