Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began on 24th February 2022 and was labelled by Russia as a “Special Military Operation”. This shocked the en­tire world, especially the West: The old wounds of West-Russia rival­ry began to resurface again in the heartland of Europe. And the world holds its breath for a longer military confrontation between the West and Russia in the theatre of Ukraine.

Experts are divided into two camps for reasoning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. On one hand, convention­al wisdom and liberals opined that Pu­tin has embarked on creating “Great­er Russia” and the Ukraine invasion is the first line of conquest for him. Af­ter occupying Ukraine, President Putin would expand its imperialist tenden­cies towards later parts of Europe, es­pecially Eastern Europe.

On the other hand, well-known Pro­fessor John Mearsheimer opined that Russia was provoked by the West which prompted the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He mainly blamed the Western policy of NATO expansion that height­ened the security concerns of Russia. The inclusion of Ukraine into NATO is the biggest red line for Russia. He also outlined the expansion of the EU and the color revolution in Ukraine that forced the early departure of the pro-Moscow regime in Ukraine in 2014.

Despite the divergence of explanation of Russian actions in Ukraine, the official narrative of the Kremlin is the non-entry of Ukraine into NATO and the rollback of NATO expansion from Eastern Europe and Baltic states. Furthermore, in a long op-ed piece by President Putin “On the historical unity of Russians and Ukraini­ans” (2021), he viewed that........

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