JRL NEWSWATCH: “The World Putin Wants: How Distortions About the Past Feed Delusions About the Future” – Foreign Affairs/ Fiona Hill, Angela Stent
“… Putin … invaded Ukraine not because he felt threatened by NATO expansion or by Western ‘provocations.’ He ordered his ‘special military operation’ because he believes … it is Russia’s divine right to rule Ukraine, to wipe out the country’s national identity, and to integrate its people into a Greater Russia. … He laid out this mission in a 5,000-word treatise … [that, with] similar public statements, make clear … Putin wants a world where Russia presides over a new Slavic union composed of Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, and perhaps the northern part of Kazakhstan … and where all the other post-Soviet states recognize Russia’s suzerainty. He … wants the West and … global South to accept Russia’s predominant regional role … [T]he West must understand … it is dealing with a leader … trying to change the historical narrative of the last hundred years ….”