russian invasion of Ukraine/Reasons

Early preparations

“ Illarionov was Putin’s chief economic advisor up until 2005. When he resigned, he left the country and became an outspoken critic.
He says Putin has been planning the months-long invasion for years.
“He’s had this idea, this goal for last two decades. Even when I was his advisor, I was able to watch to see myself his intentions,” Illarionov said.
Illarionov says Putin could never accept the fact that Ukraine was its own sovereign nation separate from Russia. He believes the invasion is step one in Putin’s grand plan of reunifying the whole former Soviet Union.

— ‘This should be stopped’: Ex-Putin advisor weighs in on Russia-Ukraine invasion

Kamil Galeev, “Daily reminder that Putin’s army of invasion was trained on the Rheinmetall-built training centre Mulino. In 2014 they ‘left’ and construction was finished by ‘Гарнизон’ company, probably a proxy. 100% of its imports came from Germany, last Rheinmetall shipments coming in 2019” [3] (PDF)

Russia started training separatists to split Ukraine in 2006 already. Then Russia’s relations with NATO were still excellent.

Reviving the Soviet Union

[2]

“ Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century.

— Vladimir Putin, “Annual Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation”, April 25, 2005

“ In essence, Ukraine’s ruling circles decided to justify their country’s independence through the denial of its past, however, except for border issues. They began to mythologize and rewrite history, edit out everything that united us, and refer to the period when Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union as an occupation.

— Vladimir Putin, “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”, July 12, 2021

«Ты вообще понимаешь, что мы фашисты?»

Expanding the russian empire

“ Peter the Great ... was returning and reinforcing, that is what he was doing.
Clearly, it fell to our lot to return and reinforce as well. And if we operate on the premise that these basic values constitute the basis of our existence, we will certainly succeed in achieving our goals.

— Vladimir Putin, “Meeting with young entrepreneurs, engineers and scientists”, June 9, 2022

“Putin’s pet propagandists readily embraced his speech about taking back historical territories. They jumped on the bandwagon with gusto, comparing their empire to the Golden Horde and North Korea.”