Authors

Discussion

Putin’s regime has offered various pretexts for invading Ukraine: NATO expansion, Ukraine’s “neo-Nazi government,” and an alleged genocide against ethnic Russians in Donbas. These false claims are grounded in a narrative of the so-called historical unity between Russians and Ukrainians and Ukraine’s supposed failure to uphold the Minsk agreements. These arguments are part of a broader Russian disinformation strategy targeting multiple audiences. This paper examines these narratives alongside the real motivations behind Russian aggression, rooted in late-Soviet and post-Soviet developments. Key factors include diverging political and social trajectories in Russia and Ukraine, conflicting views of the Soviet past, and the distorted perception of Ukraine shared by Putinist elites and ordinary Russians. The war’s deeper objectives were unattainable from the outset.