While preparing for a trip to Russia in late December 2021, I was half-joking to friends that my return to the UK could well be delayed either by COVID or a Russian invasion of Ukraine. The threat of an imminent war was permeating the western media by that stage, so my concerns seemed perfectly reasonable from their viewpoint.
Yet, whenever I touched on the subject of a possible invasion of Ukraine to people in Russia, an eyebrow was raised in surprise and incredulity. No one I spoke with during my two weeks in St Petersburg seriously considered the possibility of a large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.
