When Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine, he thought it would be an easy, three-day war where he would emerge victorious, with no significant cost to him or Russia. He assumed that the Ukrainians wouldn’t fight back, and that the West would make empty statements of condemnation but would do nothing more because that was how we behaved with all his other transgressions. We were so addicted to his money, his oil – and so afraid of his intimidation – that he felt he had nothing to worry about.
As we now know, Putin grossly miscalculated. Ukrainians did fight back, and they fought back hard. It also turned out that the West did a lot more than make bland statements. Since February 24, 2022, the West has frozen $350 billion in Russian central bank reserves, sanctioned its top oligarchs and, most importantly, has provided more than $150 billion of military and financial aid to Ukraine.
What started out looking like an unfair fight with Ukraine being a loser has turned into a stalemate.
