alt Hacker NewsYou base this assessment on what evidence?
If Russia truly wanted to conquer all of Ukraine, they would have made their move in 2014, when the Ukrainian army was far weaker and the front far less fortified. Instead, they stopped at Crimea, and provided only limited support to the breakaway provinces in the Donbas. (To this day, many hardline Russian nationalists resent Putin for this! They think he was "too soft")
Putin invaded in 2022 because he believed his hand had been forced. It wasn't, he was (and is) delusional and wrong, but there is every reason to think that he really believed it.
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There is also every reason to believe Putin is doing this to restore Russia to former size, influence and glory.
> Putin invaded in 2022 because he believed his hand had been forced. It wasn't, he was (and is) delusional and wrong, but there is every reason to think that he really believed it.
Then please name those reasons. As for the "negotiated settlement" you've brought forward - one could be forgiven to think that such a settlement would not be worth the paper it is written on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum .
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You really should read Putin's 2021 essay on why Ukraine should be Russian
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_the_Historical_Unity_of_Ru...