"Russia" did not really want to invade. _Putin_ wanted to invade. You need to separate these two entities. In 2018, Putin was still riding the high of the succe

"Russia" did not really want to invade. _Putin_ wanted to invade. You need to separate these two entities. In 2018, Putin was still riding the high of the successful Crimean annexation. His plan had clearly been to repeat that exercise to boost his ratings by the next election (in 2024). 2018 was too early for that. We now can see that the preparation for the war started in 2020-2021. For example, Putin made sure that Russia had a big enough monetary Reserve Fund. And unlike many other countries, Russia did not do state-sponsored economic stimulation during the lockdowns.