Putin's Obsession With Ukraine

For most of the 90s, Russia could pretty much do what it wanted in Ukraine. There was no real sense of Ukraine making the most of its statehood. It wasn't really a problem for Russia; they were perhaps more bothered about cases like the Baltic states,. But also, Russia didn't have much spare capacity. And I think that really got him going. He long ago, back in 2008, when Ukraine was given this sort of empty promise of NATO membership eventually, but no date, he said that Ukraine's not a country, it's just a territory. And if you pursue this, it will be torn apart. So, now, we can say we weren't warned.