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The Outlier: What if Putin's Real Target isn't Ukraine?

The Outlier: What if Putin's Real Target isn't Ukraine?

Map of Riga in Latvia. Detail from the World Map.

EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — We have a long history of misreading Russian intentions. The classic example was the judgement by the British Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) that Russia would not invade Czechoslovakia in 1968; based on a westernised view that it would not be in Moscow’s interests. Similar misjudgements were made in the prelude to Putin’s annexation of the Crimea in 2014.

Vladimir Putin calculated this winter as the ideal time to confront the West over those parts of the former Soviet Union which he believes should still be in Moscow’s sphere of influence. Winter inevitably puts Europe’s energy market under stress. Meanwhile NATO has just made a humiliating and chaotic exit from Afghanistan led by a United States president who is struggling in the polls.

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