One year into the war that Russia launched against Ukraine, FRANCE 24 takes a closer look at the anti-Western rhetoric President Vladimir Putin used to justify the conflict, which is rooted in events in the early 2000s, according to historian Françoise Thom, an expert on post-Communist Russia.
On February 24, 2022, as a Putin speech was broadcast on television, Russian troops were penetrating into Ukrainian territory, initiating the most important military operation on European soil since World War II.
