As the historical extent of Russia's loss in Ukraine becomes more apparent, a heated debate has begun about how Putin's invasion could have failed so badly.. One of the common arguments says that Moscow does not understand the mood of the Ukrainians at all, and also fatally underestimated the defense capabilities of the neighboring country..

This is a very likely explanation. For years, it has been clear that the Kremlin despises Ukraine.. And he lacks even the slightest understanding of modern Ukrainian realities.. Atlantic Council expert Anders Aslund writes about this in his article.. A culture of ignorance reinforced by imperialist conceit has now led to the greatest military disaster of the modern era..

The national roots of Ukrainians can be traced back over a thousand years. But Vladimir Putin refuses to admit that Ukraine is a nation in general. He denies Ukrainian history, language, culture and religious traditions, publicly insisting that all Ukrainians are supposedly actually Russians.. Since he does not recognize Ukraine's right to exist, his entire understanding of the country is hopelessly disfigured..

But such thinking is not limited to the Russian leader.. On the contrary, the denial of Ukrainian statehood and identity is ingrained in modern Russian society, reflecting imperialist instincts, which prevents many Russians from accepting Ukraine as something outside the national narrative of their own country..

“Over the many decades of meetings in Moscow, I have become accustomed to the arrogant Russian responses that always appeared when talking about Ukraine began.. Russians look down on Ukrainians and consider them a younger brother, unable to understand their own affairs. While some Russians may sympathize with Ukraine, few of them consider their neighbor worthy of respect as a sovereign country,” Aslund writes..

He recalled how, while working in the post-Soviet space in the early 2000s, he once learned that the Russian Embassy in Kyiv did not have a specialist to track Ukrainian media.. Russian diplomats believed that internal Ukrainian debates and affairs were just parochial to follow.. This is the type of dismissive thinking that laid the foundation for today's military miscalculations..

The lack of experts on Ukraine in Russia itself is also impressive.. For the past 8 years, Kremlin television has been completely focused on everything Ukrainian, but has not been able to create a request for real experts. This reflects the general perception that Ukrainians are essentially just Russians.. To do this, they can be understood and analyzed without special knowledge.. Also, most Russians do not even hide their disdain for Ukrainian culture.. Some Ukrainian writers, such as Nikolai Gogol, began writing in Russian during their careers.. And in Russia they believe that they have thus moved to a higher cultural level.. Ukrainian-language literature is treated with undisguised mockery.

“I heard a very educated Muscovite disparagingly describe a bad author as a real “writer”, using the Ukrainian word,” the author recalls.

Russians display a particularly toxic disregard for Ukrainian history, viewing it as a direct threat to Russian identity.. No wonder Ukrainian heroes like Hetman Ivan Mazepa are demonized as traitors and enemies for all their attempts to secure a separate Ukrainian state.. But it's hard to imagine anyone denying Ukraine's history more than Putin himself.. When Russia made its first attempt to dismember the neighboring country in the spring of 2014, Putin called the Ukrainian regions he planned to occupy " This word has been forgotten since the days of tsarism. And his return highlights Moscow's imperialist encroachment on large parts of Ukraine..

In the summer of 2021, Putin went even further by publishing a 5,000-word essay titled “On the History of the Unity of Russians and Ukrainians.”. In this testament to Putin's personal obsession with Ukraine, he rejected the existence of a separate Ukrainian identity and frankly questioned the neighboring country's historical legitimacy.. He insisted that Ukraine could only exist as a Russian vassal. Putin's persistent attempts to portray Ukraine as an integral part of Russia prevented him from noticing many striking cultural differences.. And most importantly, he could not understand the Ukrainian thirst for freedom and the readiness of Ukrainians to fight for their democratic rights.. As a result, he fell into the trap of his prejudices and convinced himself that the Orange Revolution and the Euromaidan were precisely "

According to Putin's conspiracy ideas about the world, all great events are organized from above and not a single popular movement is possible without control from sinister shadow forces.. This prevented him from understanding the spirit of volunteering and civic activism that mobilized Ukrainians during the two post-Soviet revolutions.. As a result, he was really surprised by the fierce resistance when he ordered troops to cross the Ukrainian border a month ago.. Such resistance would be impossible in a politically passive society like modern Russia..

Perhaps the most important aspect of Putin's disdain for Ukraine is his refusal to learn from his mistakes.. His self-importance in 2004, when he decided to teach the Ukrainians who they should choose as their president, provoked the Orange Revolution. 10 years after his insistence that Ukrainians and Russians are “one people” led to a failed attempt to dismember Ukraine in 2014, followed by 8 years of hybrid war that dragged the whole world into a new Cold War. The February 2022 invasion was the latest and most serious mistake due to Putin's toxic illusions about Ukraine. It seems that he sincerely believed that the Ukrainian army would scatter and surrender, and ordinary Ukrainians would greet Russian soldiers with flowers.. His criminal actions cost the lives of thousands of people, led to the greatest war in Europe since the Second World War, while turning Russia into a global pariah. Putin's disdain for Ukraine has long been his most geopolitical weakness.. And now she's leading his country to disaster.