Although official Russian channels still insist on referring to a “special military operation” in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is preparing his country for a protracted war. In a long speech earlier this week, the Russian president portrayed the conflict as an existential geopolitical struggle in which the main adversary and initial aggressor was Nato.
This reheated cold war rhetoric predates the invasion of Ukraine. It is the central plank of Mr Putin’s self-image as national saviour, restoring glory to a people whose homeland – defined by the borders of the old Soviet Union – has been dismembered by the west.
