[InTheArena]

Even this is not really accurate. World War II started when the Germans invaded Poland, but the Russians also invaded Poland. In many ways this war seems to be Putin‘s attempt at bringing back spheres of influence and a greater Russian empire. That’s not exactly a new experience in Russian history. Russians will even point at napoleons invasion of Russia, and happily forget about all of the war of the coalitions that they were an part of before then. This ignorance of history isn’t a bug in Putins world view - Its a feature. It’s a lot easier to tell the story of napoleon without Austerlitz, and Hitler without Poland, Finland and the Holodomor. Russia is far from alone in this - but unlike others Putin seems to be committed to bringing back the existential wars of the 20th century….