“Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!" —Khrushchev (1956)

War involves real deaths of many real people, and leaves incurable loss and anguish in its wake. Chess serenely follows specific and unalterable rules, whereas war is waged by deception and cheating.

A lot of staring at the board and placing of pieces happened before the first salvo of Putin’s “special military operation” in 2022. The great game of war starts long before the clock is started. The first pawns are in motion before the audience have even taken their seats, and before the press have unpacked their cameras and microphones. The world always wakes up to a war already in progress.

In this chapter, I am going to show which pieces Russia put in place before the conflict.