WHY PUTIN IS WILLING TO SACRIFICE SO MANY LIVES FOR A SLIVER OF LAND

Understanding Putin's choices requires examining ideology, insecurity, and authoritarian power shaping his decisions.

- JOHN DOBSON

I often wondered what was going on behind those eyes staring at me from across the table all those years ago.

It was spring 1994 and I was in St Petersburg with a group of colleagues from our Moscow embassy meeting the mayor's team to arrange the royal visit of our future King. Sitting across the table was the newly appointed deputy mayor, Vladimir Putin, whom we knew to be a KGB agent who had returned to his home-base from Dresden following the sudden collapse of the Berlin Wall. Putin revealed nothing about himself throughout all those meetings, a trait he continued as he rose to the top in Russia over the course of the next six years. Western commentators often portray Putin as irrational or bloodthirsty, a dictator obsessed with restoring an empire at any cost. But to those of us who study Russian political culture and security doctrine, Putin’s worldview is deeply structured. It’s shaped by decades of grievances, Soviet-era strategic thinking, and a personal mission to restore what he considers Russia’s rightful place in history.

Putin frequently speaks of the collapse of the Soviet Union as the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century. In speeches, essays, and televised appearances, he returns again and again to the idea that Russia was humiliated, its people scattered, and its borders mutilated. These views are not fringe in Russia’s political elite; instead, they anchor an ideology that blends nationalism, resentment, and the nostalgia of a fallen superpower. From this perspective, the invasion of Ukraine, though catastrophic, appears to Putin as a necessary correction of historical injustice, not wanton brutality. He sees himself less as a conqueror than as a restorer.