The reasons for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine can likely be divided into two separate groups: those that formed Putin’s steadfast desire to annex Ukrainian territories to Russia, and those that influenced the decision that the time had come.
It’s no secret that Vladimir Putin had long contemplated the annexation of Ukraine, well before Zelensky, Poroshenko, and Yanukovych’s flight. The first alarming signals appeared in 2003, during the conflict around Tuzla Island. The Tuzla situation showed that the Russian president did not rule out the possibility of resolving contentious issues with Ukraine through the use of force. I remind you that Kuchma and Putin de-escalated this border dispute only after Ukrainian paratroopers were moved to Tuzla Island when the situation was a step away from gunfire between both shores of the Kerch Strait.
Five years later, in April 2008, during a closed meeting of the Russia-NATO Council, Vladimir Putin openly hinted to George W. Bush Jr. that if Ukraine joined the North Atlantic Alliance, the country might lose its statehood.
Then, as known, the patient’s condition began to deteriorate. Putin became increasingly embittered, and in February 2014, he decided to use Yanukovych’s flight to annex Crimea. Most experts believe that in his attitude towards the Ukrainian issue, the Kremlin master was drowned in a cocktail, the main component of which were imperial ambitions. Other components of this drink included: nostalgia for the USSR, resentment over NATO’s expansion to Eastern European countries, incompetence, delusions of grandeur, and the recognition of Kosovo’s independence.
The latter precedent, in Putin’s opinion, untied his hands, as the recognition of Kosovo’s independence by the USA and other Western countries violated the 1975 Helsinki Pact on the inviolability of European states’ borders. The cherry on top was the famous quote by Zbigniew Brzezinski that Russia without Ukraine can never become an empire. In the late 90s, his book “The Grand Chessboard” was a big hit, both in Ukraine and Russia. And, of course, it made an impression on Putin.
There was a whole list of reasons why Putin needed Ukraine. This country is one of the few that possesses a full aircraft manufacturing cycle, has technologies and industrial capacities for space rocket engineering, is among the top ten largest world metallurgy producers, and is one of the biggest food exporters. Moreover, it’s a vast human resource that could fuel Russia’s demography and economy for decades.
Another reason for the war was the desire to prevent Ukraine from integrating into the European Union. A rich, successful, and democratic Ukraine is Putin’s worst nightmare. He simply could not allow Ukrainians to live better than Russians. The Russian president could “overlook” the successful transformation of Eastern European countries, but Ukraine’s success would have been the worst reminder of his own incompetence.
There is no country in the world richer in natural resources than Russia. It owns vast deposits of gold, diamonds, oil, gas, and non-ferrous metals. With the money earned only from the export of raw materials abroad, Russia could build several new cities, no worse than Dubai. But all Putin achieved after 23 years of his rule is a minimum wage for Russians at the level of $200 a month.
It wasn’t even about joining NATO. The whole story’s goal is merely the conquest or destruction of Ukraine. Estonia has long been a NATO member, and the distance between the Estonian border and Saint Petersburg is only 125 kilometers. That’s almost four times less than the distance from the Ukrainian border to Moscow. Therefore, Putin’s rhetoric about “NATO aircraft flight time” or “NATO troops at Russia’s borders” is an argument aimed only at the domestic audience.
In April 2014, when Putin, after the annexation of Crimea, began a hybrid war in the east and south of Ukraine, he hoped to capture several regions with little bloodshed. But the “Russian spring” failed everywhere except Donbas. And even there, things did not go as planned. Hybrid methods, effectively used in Crimea, stopped working, and by summer, the situation escalated into a low-intensity armed conflict.
A full-scale war was not in Vladimir Putin’s plans at that time. He later mentioned this in 2023 as his big mistake. Although in August 2014, the Russian president used the Russian regular army to defeat Ukrainian forces near Ilovaisk, the legend of the “Donbas people’s uprising” was used up until the start of the full-scale invasion. Putin harbored the hope that he could still bring Ukraine back into Russia’s sphere of influence through political means.
It’s worth noting that even two weeks before the war began, most politicians in Ukraine did not believe in the possibility of a large-scale invasion, so incredible was the very thought of it. Not only Zelensky, but even Poroshenko and Tymoshenko. It just didn’t fit any rational logic. Everyone understood that the situation now was completely different from 2014, and Russia would face catastrophic consequences in the event of a war. But Ukrainian politicians did not account for Putin’s hatred of Ukraine, capable of irrational actions. He is an authoritarian dictator, for whom even the death of tens of thousands of citizens means little.
Perhaps, had Putin been an evil genius, everything would have worked out for him. And Ukraine, except for the “irreparably nationalist” western regions, would already have been divided into three or four new federal districts of the Russian Federation. But Putin is not an evil genius. The most accurate description of him was given by the former head of the Central Bank of Russia, Viktor Geraschenko: “Putin is an ordinary C-student.” Mediocrity, who reached the top only because Boris Berezovsky chose him once.
In his attitude towards Ukraine, Putin repeatedly made two big mistakes. He overestimated the Soviet past and did not consider the local specifics of Ukrainian politics. Putin believed that Ukraine was still a former Soviet republic that accidentally and undeservedly gained independence. And his historical mission was to correct this mistake.
There’s a version that the capture of Ukraine was supposed to be the first step towards other wars. And that Ukraine was of interest to Putin primarily as a source of resources: economic, logistical, and, most importantly, human, for further expansion into Eastern Europe. The Russian president was not actually prepared for a full-scale war. He sincerely believed it would be a two-week special operation, similar to the annexation of Crimea or the suppression of the “Prague Spring” in 1968. And further on, after absorbing Ukraine, Putin could use this additional resource for a full-scale war with NATO. Ukrainians were prepared to play the role of cannon fodder in this plan. They, along with the Buryats and Tuvans, were supposed to storm Riga, Warsaw, or even Berlin as part of the Russian army.
This is just one of the versions. An argument against it is that according to the military action plan that fell into the hands of Ukrainian military, the Russian army did not intend to occupy the western regions of Ukraine. Russians feared that the presence of “hostile population” there could turn into a guerrilla war. According to Putin’s plan, Western Ukraine was to become a pro-Russian protectorate headed by a new Vichy regime or go to Poland after the division of spheres of influence between Russia and the West. Transcarpathia would come under Hungarian control. This is how the “new Yalta,” in Putin’s understanding, was supposed to look.
We do not know what was really in Putin’s mind when he planned this adventure. One thing is for certain — he greatly overestimated the capabilities of his country and his army.