I still can't understand why...there's no making sense of it, he must be a madman.
I think there is multiple reasons for it.
He
genuinely believes that Russia and Ukraine's are largely the same
people and Ukraine shouldn't really have existed as a separate state in
the first place.
He like Mike genuinely believes the 2014 revolution in Ukraine was a coup orchestrated by the west.
He
believes Ukraine integrating into the west is a a long term threat to
him. Ukraine and Russia are deeply interconnected and Ukraine joining
the west and potentially prospering more than Russia would cause issues
for his regime. The Russia people would see Ukraine doing better and ask
why aren't we doing as well?
He
believes Russia needs to be restored to great power status and get the
respect that comes from being a great power and that Russia as a great
power is entitled to a sphere of influence particularly in the countries
that made up the old Soviet Union in eastern and central Europe.
His
window of opportunity to act was declining. There is potential that
Ukraine would eventually be admitted to NATO and if that happened he
could longer control Ukraine through coercion. Russia's demography is also declining at a
steady tick. The longer he waited the weaker Russia conventional
military power would become.
There
is also a possibility that he's ill and so felt he needed to act while
he was still able to do so, but that's pure speculation.
I'm
not saying I subscribe to the following theory , but I've also seen
some geo-political analysts like Peter Zeihan suggest this is simply
about security and Russia's desire to reclaim all 12 of the major land
entry points to the Russian interior and its primary population
centers. Basically for centuries Russia's defensive policy was to
basically use these territories as a defensive buffer zone and forward
position its troops there because the Russia interior itself is very
difficult to defend. When the Soviet Union existed they controlled all
12 of these corridors into Russia but after it fell Russia ended up in
control of just one. If his theory is correct that Russia will not stop
at Ukraine but look to keep expanding into eastern and central Europe.
But he also thought he would get away with it.
Firstly
he didn't think the Ukrainian's would resist. Like he probably
genuinely believed most Ukrainian's would welcome the Russian's coming
and their was strong pro Russian sentiment across the country, that they
hated the Zelensky government, that Zelensky himself given his
background was not a serious political leader and likely a puppet of the
west that would either prove useless, flee or be killed pretty quickly.
What
probably happened here is that Putin fell into the classic dictator
trap of all his subordinates and intelligence services becoming yes men
and telling him exactly what he wanted to hear. They told him the
Ukrainian's wouldn't fight and be largely welcoming of the Russia
because they where afraid to tell him otherwise.
If
you look at the military force Russia actually invaded with, by
historical standards it wasn't very large. I mean Ukraine has a bigger
population than France did in World War 1 and the Germans failed
invading with over 10 times that number.
In
the opening stages of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian's
restrained themselves from doing damage to civilian area's so as not to
create any resentment by the local population. But you can see by the
way the units operated they where not expecting serious resistance. For
example lightly armed units of the Rosgvardiya did thunder runs into
major population centers, driving far ahead of the main units and air
cover in light vehicles. Rosgvardiya are like the Russian equivalent of
the National Guard, they are not front line combat troops but more like
occupation and policing units with the combat capabilities of something
like a SWAT unit. So when they encountered heavy resistance they where
not remotely equipped to deal with it, took heavy casualties and bid a
hasty retreat. But even among more regular Russian forces, they where
utterly complacent in properly setting up things like their air defense
systems hence why the Ukrainians had a lot of success with drones early
on in the war.
So
in Putin's mind if the Ukrainians where not going fight and the war
would be over in a matter of days or weeks there wasn't much the west
could do to stop him. No military aid would reach Ukraine before the
conflict was over.
Thinking back to his previous aggressive actions and crossing of Western red lines the response from the west was tepid.
So
if your Putin and you look at Europe, he would of seen the leverage he
had with energy supplies. A Germany that still guilt ridden over WWII
bending over backwards to accommodate Russia. Sympathetic voices from
some places in Europe, like the main opposition parties in France and
Italy as well as the leader of Hungary. Strained relations within the
EU with arguably the most anti Russian state Poland in dispute with the
EU over judicial appointments. Strained relations between the EU and UK following Brexit, and a
continent that was just trying to recover from the Covid pandemic.
If
he looked at America, he would have seen strained relations between
Europe and America during the Trump regime, a politically very divided
America, in Biden a dothery President who made a complete mess of the
withdrawal from Afghanistan and seemed to want to end America's
involvement in conflicts not get involved in a new one. America also
seem preoccupied with what it perceived as the bigger threat China.
So
from his perspective he probably thought, sure the West may sanction
Russia harder than 2014 but he built up a big reserve buffer of cash to
combat this and it was nothing that Russia couldn't ride out.