The decision to invade Ukraine was made solely by Vladimir Putin and a very narrow circle of his advisers, which did not include the Kremlin leadership or Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. And what the Russian president intended to be a “brilliant and relatively bloodless blitzkrieg”, with the occupation of Kyiv completed in a few days, turned out to be “a quagmire of historic proportions for Russia.”

The Financial Times reconstructed the origin of the conflict in Ukraine, in the report on the origins of the conflict it is written that the war was provoked by the decision of the Russian president and a few super-trusted people, without the involvement of the entire leadership. in Moscow, Rador quotes.

“Around one o’clock in the morning on February 24, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov received an alarming phone call. After several months spent preparing a 100,000-strong invasion force on Ukraine’s borders, Vladimir Putin gave the go-ahead for the invasion.

The decision completely surprised Lavrov,” writes the Financial Times. The turning point, which occurred a few days after Putin’s initiative to question “members of his Security Council about the possibility of recognizing two states in Donbas — at a televised ceremony — but he did not inform them of his true intentions,” it says. British newspaper.

Thus, “all the top Kremlin leaders learned about the invasion only when they saw Putin announce a ‘special military operation’ on TV in the morning,” Il Fatto Quotidiano quoted.

During a meeting on the same day with several oligarchs, “where everyone was going crazy” because they knew that the sanctions would hit them hard, one of the people present told a British newspaper, “one of the oligarchs asked Lavrov how Putin could have planned so much a major invasion so narrow in scope that most senior Kremlin officials, Russia’s economic cabinet and its business elite did not even believe it was possible.

“He has three advisers,” Lavrov replied. Ivan the Terrible. Peter the First. And Catherine the Great,” concluded Lavrov.”

Putin believed, however, that the war in Ukraine would be resolved within days with the almost immediate capture of Kyiv. A scenario that, exactly one year after the start of the conflict, all but happened, led to the intervention of NATO and Europe, which provides military aid to Kyiv, and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, including military and civilians. .

And where statements about the escalation and continuation of hostilities currently prevail over the implementation of peace negotiations.

“According to Putin’s invasion plan,” continues the Financial Times, “Russian troops were to capture Kyiv within days in a flashy and relatively bloodless blitzkrieg.” Instead, the war turned out to be a quagmire of historic proportions for Russia,” Radora quotes.

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