The Planned War

Abstract

In retrospect, it is clear that a close circle around Russian President Vladimir Putin has been systematically preparing for the current war in Ukraine for years. It is not clear from the outside when exactly the decision to attack Ukraine was made. However, during his first term in office, Putin made it clear that he was concerned with restoring Russia’s national greatness and that, from his point of view, Ukraine belonged to Russia, and by 2014 at the latest, Russia began to prepare for an escalating conflict with the West. At the time, it was not apparent that Putin would be prepared to start a war of aggression, and there was no evidence of such plans. A new assessment of Russia’s preparations for the current war is therefore not intended to be smarter in retrospect but to enable a better understanding of Russian politics.