The Post-Covid Invasion of Ukraine

Putin used the 2014 playbook on Crimea again in 2022. He simply cut and pasted—I suppose he thought why fix something that isn’t broken? This time, the “invitation” came from pro-secessionist groups among the Russian-speaking population of Eastern Ukraine. The chatter from Proriv and the Eurasian Youth Movement (they of the 100-man “mass protests”) was that they were being repressed by a horrific neo-Nazi zombie state, and needed liberation.

The self-declared independent statelets of Donetsk and Luhansk started mobilizing forces on February 19th, 2022. On February 21st, Putin sent troops and military equipment to back them in their revolution. On February 24th, the Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, and the war began.

This time it did not go to plan.