Invading Ukraine May Never Have Been Putin's Aim
An invasion is not the only way the crisis in Ukraine can play out.
A diplomatic solution may yet provide an off-ramp for Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose placement of tens of thousands of troops along Russia’s border with its smaller neighbor kicked off the current crisis.
Indeed, the leaders of Russia and Ukraine have throughout the now 20-week-long crisis accused the U.S. and U.K. of stirring panic with talk of an imminent invasion.
Invasion may never have been the point. One interpretation is that President Putin mobilized his soldiers and sailors primarily to force a dialogue with the West over what the spheres of influence and interest in Eastern Europe should be.
As a scholar who has spent his entire career studying Russian history, I see the current crisis in a broader context. If you zoom out from the events of the past few weeks, it is possible to see this dangerous standoff as part of the continuing fallout from the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Some 30 years on, the architecture of what is supposed to be the “new world order” is still being built.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/opinions/2022/02/17/invading-ukraine-may-never-have-been-putins-aim.html
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