Russia and Putin were condemned, expelled or suspended from some prestigious international clubs and events for flouting the rules. Russia was admitted to the G-7 in 1997, for example, making it the G-8, but was expelled over the 2014 annexation of Crimea. In 2019, Russia was suspended from the Olympic Games and other sporting events because of years of state-sponsored doping.
Such international condemnation clashed with the invincible strongman image Putin cultivated at home. Kremlin publicity photos of Putin tell that story: a shirtless Putin riding a horse in Siberia, taking an icy dip in a Russian lake in deep winter and so on. His calculation, after introducing legislation to essentially allow him to stay in power for life, is that the only way to achieve the status he craves on the international stage is to turn from supplicant to adversary.
And in this he is now making full use of his KGB training.
Putin also knows that his gamble puts something far larger, and epoch-making, at play.
The Ukraine war, the first major conflict in Europe since World War II ended in 1945, has echoes of the 1990s wars that broke apart the former Yugoslavia. I covered those wars. The sense of "it can’t happen to us" disbelief is similar to the disbelief in Ukraine right up to the invasion. And for the same reason: a sense that the post-World War II order – embodied in the United Nations, NATO, other international organizations – guaranteed peace and stability.
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