> Thus, the war happened because Vladimir Putin wanted it to happen and he wanted it to happen to overthrow the democratically elected government of Ukraine; it

> Thus, the war happened because Vladimir Putin wanted it to happen and he wanted it to happen to overthrow the democratically elected government of Ukraine; it is as yet unclear if he then intends to annex the country or place a puppet government in charge of it (which given the diminished independence of Belarus, might amount to the same thing in the end). This is a little bit of a let down. "It happened because Putin wanted it to happen". Looking at the way Putin talks and behaves, his actions are like actions of a child who has a tantrum. He's very emotional, probably someone pissed him off very much on an inner child level. Maybe someone threatened taking his toys away. The man seems to be very irrational, he says words that to him are reasonable, but they're so shallow that someone with half a brain can read through it in a split-second. I think this is all personal. There could be things happening within a very small circle of people causing his childish reaction. We have to remember that those at the top of world politics know each other for decades. Putin ain't a superhuman, he's simply like a 12 year old bully but unfortunately he has 850k active military personnel, a fuck-ton of tanks, artillery and air force. Without justifying anything Putin has done, let's consider an alternative narrative. Let's accept that what American intelligence is saying, that he was preparing this for 15 or 20 years. Putin once before the invasion said something along the lines that "Americans (rest of the world?) have done similar things". Maybe his actions are as simple as "look, they've done it so many times and THEY won't let ME do X, they profited here and there and they forbid me from doing the same, I will show them" where that X maybe even wasn't about Ukraine in the first place? Although, it probably was. He watched USSR collapse under drunk Yeltsin. But from Putin's perspective: Iraq and Afghanistan under Bush and co. Unjustified war backed by totally falsified evidence, no idea how a regular person in the USA benefits from those but I'm sure military industry made a killing on it. Iraq alone was, depending on the source, from 460k to over 1m "excessive casualties". Libya? What was the point? Proxy war in Syria? What's the point? Are the alternatives we have now better? I'm not saying "but look what the other side did", whataboutism isn't what I'm doing here. I'm saying: this is how Putin maybe sees it. As Putin was getting more and more isolated, he felt ignored, frustrated, angry. That he cannot finish his plan because the guard has changed and those who did similar things alongside him are no longer in power. And like an ignored and frustrated bully, he waited around the bush and smacked the victim right in the nose. Unfortunately, this victim is the people of Ukraine and the smack is tanks and bombs. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to downplay how severe this situation is. Innocent people suffer and die. Putin is a criminal and he will be remembered for all the wrong reasons. He will stand in the same line as Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and the rest from this list: https://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html https://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html.