This is where some Western adherents to Cold War realism — a school of thought which is a part of international relations, a subdiscipline of political science — would argue that the war is all about NATO enlargement.
In their opinion, Putin was convinced of an actual military staging ground being prepared in Ukraine, which Russia, as a rational actor, would find most distressing, as this process of arming Kyiv was taking place right on Russia’s borders.
In reality, there was never any possibility or desire either by Ukraine or NATO to attempt to endanger Russia in military terms.
If anything, Western actors have, by and large, attempted to appease Putin through diplomatic means, even when it was clear that Moscow forces were on their way to take control of Kyiv and Ukraine back in February 2022.
We can observe this desire to tread carefully even after 500 days of the all-out war, with the US weighing every new arms supply to Ukraine against the possibility of the war escalating any further.
In Putinspeak, ‘Anti-Russia’ means not being an imperialistic mafia state
Putin was, however, right — but in a completely different sense. Ukraine was gradually indeed becoming an “anti-Russia” by means of the democratic, freedom-loving spirit of its people.
By 2014 and following the events of Euromaidan, the citizens of Ukraine had opted for a political and economic transition that would lead them away from the grips of the Kremlin and root their country deep within the more politically and economically advanced part of Europe.
With Russia being an autocratic, imperialistic, geriatric mafia state, Ukraine decided to become the opposite.
Ukraine was set on its way to becoming a modern liberal democracy with functioning laws and institutions, where human rights are respected, foreign investment capital is attracted, and the ruling government can be replaced in free elections.
Then Russia started the war back in 2014, annexing Crimea and aiding and abetting the parastates in the Donbas.
Can you imagine Russians having such a free, progressive, prosperous neighbour on their own border and, by their own worldview, within their cultural sphere, and not wanting a better life for themselves, too?
Putin knew that. And he understood he had too much to lose.
A successful Ukraine is a direct threat to Putin’s regime
Most ordinary Russians do not feel that Ukraine or Belarus are actual foreign countries — a belief shared by the ruling circles in Moscow.
If it weren’t for the war against Ukraine raging on for nine years straight, this feeling could be taken as benign cultural closeness. Yet, ever since 2014, this sentiment has grown into an outright imperialist desire to occupy and rule by hook or by crook.
This terrifying sense of “closeness at all costs” is exactly the reason why Ukraine, as a successful democratic and economically developed nation, would pose a direct threat to Putin’s regime, first and foremost.
