The Wound That Never Healed
For Russia, the story doesn’t start in 2022. It starts in 1991, when the Soviet Union fell apart. And for a lot of Russians, that wasn’t liberation. It was humiliation. An empire that had beaten Napoleon and Hitler, that had put the first man in space, suddenly collapsed. Fifteen republics went their own way. Russia lost a quarter of its territory, half its population, and its status as a superpower.
Ukraine wasn’t just another republic. It was the heartland. Kyivan Rus is where Russian civilization began. Crimea was Russian for centuries. Sevastopol was the home of the Black Sea Fleet. The idea that Ukraine would just… leave? That was hard for a lot of Russians to swallow. Putin called it the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century. He meant it.
But for a while, Moscow tried to make it work. They signed treaties. They recognized Ukraine’s borders. They even gave up their nuclear weapons in exchange for a promise—the Budapest Memorandum—that Russia, the US, and the UK would respect Ukraine’s sovereignty. Russia kept that promise for twenty years. Then 2014 happened.
NATO: The Red Line Nobody Listened To
Here’s the thing the West doesn’t like to talk about. After the Cold War, NATO didn’t dissolve. It expanded. Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic. Then the Baltics. Then Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Slovenia. Then Montenegro. Then North Macedonia. Every time, Russia protested. Every time, the West said, “It’s not about you.”
But from Moscow’s point of view, it was absolutely about them. NATO is a military alliance. Its purpose was to counter Russia. And now it was moving closer and closer to Russia’s borders. Imagine if Russia had built military bases in Mexico or Canada. How would Washington react? You don’t need to guess. The Cuban Missile Crisis already answered that question.
In 2008, NATO said Ukraine and Georgia would eventually become members. That was the moment Putin decided he’d had enough. He wasn’t going to let Ukraine join a hostile alliance. Not ever. For Moscow, that’s not paranoia. That’s survival. A NATO missile in Kharkiv is a five-minute flight to Moscow. You don’t need to be a general to understand why that’s unacceptable.
2014: The Coup and the Break
The West calls it the Euromaidan Revolution. Moscow calls it a coup. And from their perspective, it fits. A democratically elected president—Viktor Yanukovych—was overthrown by street protests backed by Western money and Western diplomats. Victoria Nuland was handing out cookies in the Maidan. John McCain was standing on stage with opposition leaders. You think the Kremlin didn’t notice?
For Moscow, Yanukovych wasn’t perfect. He was corrupt. He was weak. But he was legitimate. And he was replaced by people who wanted to join NATO and kick Russia out of Crimea. That was the breaking point.
So Russia moved. The “little green men” appeared in Crimea. They took over the parliament, the airports, the military bases. A referendum was held. Crimea voted to join Russia. The West called it illegal. Moscow called it a correction of a historical mistake. Khrushchev had given Crimea to Ukraine in 1954 as a symbolic gesture. Now the gesture was over.
Then came Donbas. The people in Donetsk and Luhansk didn’t accept the new government in Kyiv. They called it a junta. They declared independence. Kyiv sent the army. And for eight years, a war raged that the West barely noticed. Fourteen thousand people died. Most of them were Russian speakers. Most of them were in Donbas. Moscow says it tried to stop it. The Minsk Accords were supposed to give Donbas special status. Ukraine never implemented them. Shelling continued. People lived in basements. That’s the context Putin talks about when he says Russia was left with no choice.
The Road to February 24
By 2021, Moscow was done waiting. Ukraine was getting Javelins. Turkish drones. NATO trainers. The US was talking about Ukraine joining NATO again. Putin made one last attempt at diplomacy. He demanded written guarantees: no NATO membership for Ukraine, no missiles in Ukraine, no NATO troops in Ukraine. The West refused. They said Ukraine had the right to choose its own alliances. Moscow said that was a threat to Russia’s core security.
On February 24, 2022, Putin went on television and announced a “special military operation.” He didn’t call it a war. He called it a mission to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, and to protect the people of Donbas. The West laughed at the “denazify” part. But in Moscow, they meant it. They saw the Azov Regiment with its Nazi-style symbols. They saw Bandera statues. They saw a nationalist ideology that glorified people who had collaborated with Hitler. Was it exaggerated? Yes. Was it completely invented? No. There was a real problem with far-right groups in Ukraine. The West ignored it. Moscow didn’t.
The plan was simple: push into Kyiv, force Zelenskyy to negotiate, get a deal that guaranteed Ukraine’s neutrality, and secure Donbas. It wasn’t supposed to be a long war. It wasn’t supposed to be a conquest of all Ukraine. That’s the Western narrative. Moscow’s story is different: they wanted a neutral, demilitarized Ukraine that wouldn’t be a staging ground for NATO.
The War Itself: What Moscow Sees
The first weeks were messy. The push toward Kyiv stalled. The convoy got stuck. The airborne assault on Hostomel didn’t go as planned. The West declared it a disaster. But Moscow doesn’t see it that way. They say they withdrew from Kyiv as a gesture of goodwill during the Istanbul talks. And those talks almost produced a deal. Ukraine agreed to neutrality. Russia agreed to withdraw to pre-war lines. Then Boris Johnson flew to Kyiv and told Zelenskyy to fight. The deal collapsed. That’s the Russian version. You can believe it or not, but that’s what they say.
In the south, Russia did better. They took Kherson. They took Melitopol. They linked up with Crimea. They besieged Mariupol. The Azovstal fight was brutal. The Azov Regiment held out for weeks. When they finally surrendered, Russia had its land bridge. That was a strategic win. The West called it a war crime. Moscow called it a military necessity.
Then came the Kharkiv counteroffensive. Russia got caught off guard. They lost a lot of territory. It was a real setback. But Moscow didn’t panic. They pulled back, stabilized the front, and annexed four regions—Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson. It was a signal: we’re not leaving. These are ours now.
Adapting, Grinding, Surviving
The West thought sanctions would cripple Russia. They didn’t. The ruble crashed for a few weeks, then recovered. Russia found new markets in China, India, and the Middle East. Oil still flowed. Money still came in. The military industry ramped up. Factories started running three shifts. Russia learned from its mistakes.
The drone war was a wake-up call. Ukraine had the early advantage with Turkish Bayraktars and cheap FPV drones. But Russia adapted. They developed Lancet kamikaze drones. They bought Shahed drones from Iran. They improved their electronic warfare. They started jamming Ukrainian signals. They learned how to fight a modern war.
In 2023, Ukraine launched its big summer counteroffensive. The West had trained brigades. They had Leopards, Bradleys, Challengers. They were supposed to break through to the Sea of Azov. They didn’t. The Surovikin Line held. Minefields. Trenches. Artillery. Drones. Ukrainian forces got bogged down. They lost a lot of equipment. They lost a lot of people. The offensive failed.
Then came Bakhmut. Then Avdiivka. Russia kept grinding forward. Slow, costly, but forward. Moscow doesn’t care about speed. They care about holding on. They have more men. They have more shells. They have a bigger industrial base. They can outlast Ukraine. That’s the calculation.
The World According to Moscow
From the Kremlin’s point of view, this isn’t just a war with Ukraine. It’s a war with the West. NATO is fighting Russia through Ukrainian proxies. The sanctions, the weapons, the intelligence sharing—it’s all part of a bigger strategy to weaken Russia. Putin says the West wants to dismember Russia, to steal its resources, to destroy its culture. Maybe that sounds paranoid. But you have to understand: Russians have been invaded from the west before. Napoleon. Hitler. They don’t trust Western promises.
So Russia pivoted east. China is now a strategic partner. Iran provides drones. North Korea provides artillery. BRICS is growing. The Global South isn’t buying the Western narrative. Many countries see this as a great power conflict, not a morality play. Moscow says the world is multipolar now. The West can’t dictate everything anymore.
And on the home front, Putin has tightened his grip. Opposition is crushed. Media is controlled. The war is framed as an existential struggle against NATO. A lot of Russians believe it. Not because they love the war. But because they’ve been told for years that Russia is surrounded by enemies. And now they see it on their TV screens.
The Cost
None of this means the war has been easy for Russia. It hasn’t. Tens of thousands of Russian soldiers have died. Sanctions have hurt. Young men have fled the country. The economy is on a war footing. There’s grief, there’s anger, there’s fatigue.
But Moscow doesn’t talk about that. Moscow talks about victory. They talk about protecting Donbas. They talk about standing up to NATO. They talk about a new world order. Whether you agree or not, that’s the story they’re selling. And a lot of people are buying it.
So What Now?
From Moscow’s perspective, this is an existential war. They believe they cannot lose. If Ukraine joins NATO, if Russia is defeated, if Putin is humiliated—that’s not just a policy failure. That’s the end of Russia as a great power. They will not let that happen. They will keep fighting. They will absorb the costs. They will wait out the West.
The West sees it differently. They see a war of aggression. They see Bucha. They see Mariupol. They see a dictator trying to rebuild an empire. They’re not wrong. But Moscow sees it differently. They see a defensive war. They see a broken promise. They see a red line crossed.
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